The Snork
by Portuguese Irish
Summary: Snorks: annoying mutants that jump, kick, claw, bite and ultimately kill. Feelings and emotions? None... Except for THAT snork, who was really curious. *re-written*
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** I've finally started to re-write this, and hopefully make it better. :D

I like snorks, I can't shoot the poor things. I came up with this story shortly after meeting and starting to work with «my» horse; I'd never seen such an agressive and distrustful horse before, but a few months after working together he stopped being agressive and even allowed me to start patting his head (he's blind of his left eye, he doesn't let people touch his head), and today the guy's my loyal 4 legged comrade.

So based on «my» horse, I wondered what would happen if a snork went through the same process of having to live without being in constant conflict. Despite being a purely fictional creature, the concept of a mutated human is interesting; it's not an animal, but it's not a human... so how the heck does someone deal with a humanesque beast?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my story. :)

* * *

The snork had the impression there was something following it. But, glancing behind, the snork couldn't see anything.

Maybe it was just being paranoid.

Maybe the hunger was making it sense things.

With a grunt, the mutant trotted away, to the underground tunnels where its fellows were. It was getting dark and the snork didn't like to be outside in the dark, alone, because all the creepy mutants that had a better sight would definitely pick up a fight with it, and right now the hungry snork felt too weak to fight. Speaking on said mutants, the snork could already hear a few threatening growls across the swamp.

The snork changed to something that resembled a full-speed gallop and, by the corner of its eye, saw _something_. Maybe just a zombified stalker.

But then the snork felt something sting its neck and it growled angrily, coming to a halt and turning around to see _who dared_ to do such a thing. In the growing darkness, all the snork could see were figures walking to it. They moved too fast to be zombified stalkers, and they didn't look like any of the mutants that lived in the swamp.

The snork decided it would be wiser to simply run for dear life, and that was what it intended to do… but then its head began to spin, and its limbs didn't obey at all, and its poor sight became foggy. The snork realised it fell on its side.

The creatures became closer and the snork, in a desperate attempt to pull itself together, tried to kick them away, stand on its four and run.

The world became pitch black.

* * *

"Watch your head, doctor." One of the soldiers said. A little too late; Vitaly, blindfolded, had already hit his head while trying to leave the armoured vehicle.

Feeling the fresh air against his face felt good. Vitaly sighed, ignoring the throb in his head and the protest of his muscles, sore for spending so much time sitting in such a tight space. But then finally!, the blindfold was removed and Vitaly looked around, expectantly.

The sight was not amusing, though; barracks, barracks, concrete walls with barbed wire, watchtowers, soldiers coming and going and it looked like it would rain cats and dogs any time soon. Vitaly looked over his shoulder, but the vehicle and the soldiers who had brought him to the Zone were gone.

When he looked ahead again there was a general standing before him, a big man with a shaved head, brown eyes and a sympathetic smile. They shook hands and Vitaly winced a little when his hand was nearly smashed by the general's firm grip:

"Doctor Fedor, welcome to Base 666!" The general saluted. "I presume your ride was… uncomfortable. I apologize, but this project requires secrecy."

"No… no problem." Vitaly replied. He had just finished his course and by mere chance had known the Army was recruiting civilian engineers, biologists, physicists and medics. He had decided to try his luck and had applied for the job. There hadn't been any details during the interview. Only when he was called again to be told he had gotten the job, Vitaly was told he was going to work in a secret governmental project with the Army. No more details.

Now, he was somewhere in the Zone, a place he had heard little rumours of.

Vitaly followed the general to a small wooden cabin nearby:

"I've heard you've just graduated, doctor." The general commented and opened the door. There was a trapdoor inside the cabin, with stairs going down. Vitaly followed the general down the stairs and found himself in a long, apparently infinite white corridor. The young scientist had the immediate feeling of being in a prison, or a hospital:

"Some weeks ago, yes…" Vitaly said, still following the general. There were fireproof doors on each side of the corridor, and right next to the doors were small signboards with numbers.

Indeed, the corridor seemed endless! The general noticed Vitaly couldn't stop looking around, trying to figure out where he was and what was behind the fireproof doors:

"This is where my soldiers stay." The general explained. "The old barracks up there are fake and work only as garages. Behind these doors there are infirmaries, dormitories, canteens and weapon deposits. You are going to stay on the floor below."

Vitaly widened his eyes; there was a floor below that one? That suddenly felt too claustrophobic.

They found a soldier coming in the opposite direction, his green uniform ridiculously outstanding in the whiteness of the corridor. And finally, the end of the corridor. There was a door, locked, and the general removed a bunch of keys from one of his pockets and opened the door. Again stairs, going down.

The second floor was exactly like the first, much to Vitaly's dismay. However, the general stopped in front of the 1st door at their left and pushed it open:

"Here, your canteen." He explained. Vitaly peeked inside; it was big, with tables and a little leisure area with a few couches gathered in front of an old TV. Everything was white, with the exception of the couches, of a leathery yellow. From the kitchen came a pleasant smell, and Vitaly's stomach rumbled demanding for a decent dinner, since breakfast and lunch had been some terrible excuses of meals.

They proceeded their way; on the right side there were a few labs that, according to the general, were the work-place of Vitaly's colleagues, who happened to work most of times in the terrain, outside.

The general stopped again before a door at their left, numbered 24, and unlocked it:

"Your room, doctor. You can leave your bag here." He said. Vitaly nodded and got in, looking around shyly. The room was small, white, with a bed, a tiny closet wall and a small private bathroom. Vitaly left his bag on the floor and noticed a couple of keys on the bedside-table. "Those are yours, doctor. Bring them."

Vitaly did as he was told and slipped the pair of keys into the pockets of his jeans. They proceeded their way, and stopped again in front of a door at their right, not far from Vitaly's room, numbered 45:

"Your lab, doctor." The general informed. Widening his eyes, Vitaly reached for the keys in his pocket and, in fact, one of them said 45. Trying to be serious and solemn, Vitaly unlocked the door and walked in the lab.

It was big and white. There was a desk with a pile of paper and a few survival guides. There was also a lab workstation with a microscope, a small freezer and plenty of petri dishes. Next to the workstation there was a medical cabinet with a stretcher. And, in the far end of the room, there was a MRI scan machine that could be isolated from the rest of the lab through sliding doors. Not far from the machine was a small rectangular window and another open door that leaded to a small cabinet that contained the MRI scan workstation.

Vitaly gaped in a quite ungracious way, and behind him the general chuckled:

"I presume you will enjoy working here." The general commented. "Now, let's take a look at your subject of study, yes?"

The young scientist nodded, excited; if his workplace was like that, so surely his subject of study was something highly interesting and challenging!

They went back to the corridor, and just like the floor above, that one also ended with a door, this time unlocked, that the general opened to reveal more stairs going down. And they went down, and Vitaly noticed the walls were nude and the light was weak. It was cold and humid and very much like a prison.

Then Vitaly heard a growl and looked around, confused. They reached the last floor, that wasn't a corridor; it was a huge square room, with many little cells with metal bar doors, and in the middle of the room there was something that resembled the indoor ring a man from Vitaly's _stanitsa_ had for his horses… but unlike that ring, this one didn't have sand on the floor, just the cold pavement, and the sides were protected by full-length iron bars.

Another growl and Vitaly looked around once more, disturbed. Maybe the Army had dogs with them…? Yet, truth to be told, the young scientist had never heard a dog growl like that.

They stopped in front of a cell and the general smiled, mischievously:

"And this, doctor, is your subject of study." He explained.

Vitaly looked into the cell and, in the dimness, he saw a soldier lying on the floor. But then the soldier _growled_ and, slowly, visibly painfully, stood on its four and limped towards the metal bars. The young scientist gave a step back, terrified, when that _thing_ reached the metal bars and growled again, its lipless mouth wide open while trying to slip an arm between the metal bars of its cell to claw at the visitors. The creature had a leather collar around its neck, and from the collar hung a short and heavy-looking chain:

"What is that?" Vitaly asked, horrified, as the thing threw itself against the metal bars, probably in an attempt to break them, or magically escape through them. The general held his bunch of keys and hit them against the metal bars.

The creature snarled and backed away quickly:

"It's a snork, doctor Fedor. A mutated human, and despite the fragile appearance these creatures are powerful predators. These creatures have no feelings or emotions, they are simply vicious beasts, just like all the other mutants." The general explained calmly and Vitaly's eyes widened in sheer horror. "Your colleagues study dead snorks… you are going to study a living one and understand if it can become a human again."

Interesting? Yes! Challenging? Very! But… now Vitaly wasn't so sure about enjoying his work…

However…

Again, the word echoed in Vitaly's mind. So, that thing had been human, once. Had had a name, a family… a life. Pity overcame horror, and he stepped closer to the cell.

"This specimen here was brought 2 days ago, and we have already bathed it and left it without food or water. The little bastard is resistant, though… Anyway, see that collar around its neck? It has sensors, so if the snork makes any sudden movement the collar will give it an electric shock; it's not enough to kill it, but it will make it think twice before repeating the stunt." The general chuckled. "Also, the inside of the collar is much like those training collars for dogs. That will make the snork follow you and behave on its way to the lab and back here. It's perfectly safe. And don't be afraid of using strength with this creature and hurt it; it's not an animal nor a human… at least, for now."

Vitaly just looked at the snork, frowning lightly. He couldn't see the mutant in detail, but he could see it was a small and thin creature, and now that it stood still in the same spot, still growling ferociously, Vitaly noticed it was shivering. Maybe the soldiers had bathed it with a hose, like the mutant was a horse, and had left it with its soaked clothes and boots.

The snork stared at the two humans, especially at the new one; that one wasn't shouting, and the mutant wondered why. Finally, the humans walked away, and when the door closed the growling ceased and the snork collapsed on the cold stone floor, feeling exhausted, thirsty and starving and its entire body ached. Shutting its eyes, the snork asked itself why the humans didn't simply kill it once and for all.

* * *

After having dinner and receiving a little compilation of information about snorks, a uniform, a pair of combat boots, a dog tag and a white smock, Vitaly went to his bedroom and began to read the compilation; it was everything his colleagues knew about snorks, until the moment.

Reading that and remembering the little creature from hours before, the young scientist had to admit the specimen he had to study seemed harmless due to its miserable state. _Seems._ , he thought worriedly, and imagined that lipless mouth surely had a powerful bite. With a sigh, Vitaly shoved the compilation aside and stared to the ceiling, thinking; how was he going to interact with the mutant? If it wasn't an animal, he surely couldn't treat it like a dog… and if it wasn't a human, he obviously couldn't treat it like a person. Yet. Vitaly was actually curious to find out if the mutation could be reverted. If he could help that thing that had once been a man, like him. The young scientist frowned, bitterly; he would only know that if he did what the general told him to.

In the next day, Vitaly woke up before the alarm clock, went to the canteen to have breakfast and then went to his lab. He discovered syringes with a strong sedative in the medical cabinet, and decided he should take one with him. Then, he headed to the snork's cell.

He just hoped the mutant wouldn't notice how nervous and scared he was. He opened the door at the end of the corridor and went downstairs, and this time there wasn't any growling. Vitaly found the snork lying on the floor, its back facing him. The young scientist hesitated, and for a moment he considered going to look for someone to help him to take the mutant to his lab…

But seemed that creature was _his_ problem. With a sigh, Vitaly opened the door of the cell and got in.

The snork growled and, slowly, stood on all fours. The weak light reflexing on the lenses of its gas mask was frightening, and Vitaly found it very difficult to make his legs move forwards:

"So… uh… you… you have to go to my lab…" The young scientist mumbled and, slowly, so slowly, finally moved towards the snork and bent down, to hold the end of the chain attached to the collar around the snork's neck. The mutant growled louder. "Please, don't bite my head off… I… uh…"

The snork just looked at the human, confused; it knew it couldn't attack, because it had tried before and had felt something horrible, like it had been caught in an anomaly, and whatever happened to it made it feel dizzy and weak and unable to move properly for a while. Besides, the thing the humans had put around its neck hurt it when they pulled the chain, or simply if it moved too much. So all things considered, it was an easy prey, and it couldn't understand why the human wasn't shouting and attacking it like the others.

Yet, just as expected, the human held the chain. What was unexpected was the soft, almost imperceptible tug on the chain. The snork stood still and for a moment it thought about holding the chain and pull it away from the human's hands, but it was too weak for it.

Another tug, a little stronger this time:

"Uh… snork, can you move? Please?" Vitaly asked. The snork snarled and decided it would study that strange human, and then conclude if it had a chance to kill it and escape. Slowly, the snork began to walk, growling lowly, and followed the human (who tried his best to stay away from the snork's reach) out of the cell, around the ring, up the stairs and into the corridor.

The snork hesitated and winced once it reached the corridor; the bright light made its eyes hurt, and all those different and new scents were distracting. But another lightly strong tug made the snork follow the human again. That human was strange, mumbling something imperceptible, and the mutant was sure that at any moment he would break his neck from being constantly looking from the snork to the way ahead.

The young scientist opened the door of his lab, came in and closed the door behind the snork. He noticed, as he closed the door, that his hands were shaking. But he had made it! He was about to smile… then remembered he _still_ had to study the snork. And how was he supposed to do that, what did he need to do to understand if the mutation was reversible? Vitaly looked down at the snork and, now that he was able to see it properly, he felt his stomach clench; the mutant was covered in open wounds, the worst of all being its exposed spine, and the little of its skin that wasn't injured was dark grey, like it had been burned. The tattered uniform was certainly damp, by the way it glued to the skinny body under it.

 _It is surely in constant pain, the poor thing…_ , the young scientist thought. Feeling pity again for that creature, Vitaly released the chain and kneeled next to it.

The snork was still growling, lowly, even though its curiosity was making it feel much more interested in that new environment than in the silly human. It felt the chain loose and turned its head to its side, to look at the human. The human wasn't towering over it anymore, it had come to its level. And why was the human looking at it like _that_ , everybody knows humans don't look at snorks like _that_. Now the snork was curious about the human, too.

Slowly, Vitaly stretched his hand to touch the snork. With a grunt, the mutant suddenly slapped his hand away. The collar gave it an electric shock and the snork fell on its side. The little aggression was enough to make the young scientist jump backwards and nearly run to his desk and hide behind it. But he noticed the snork on the floor, unable to move, and had a wonderful idea; the sedative!, he would sedate the snork, weight and measure it, move it to the stretcher and tie it there, and then find it dry clothes and boots, change it and tend those wounds, and maybe he would even manage to get a blood sample and run a MRI scan.

Vitaly succeeded in injecting the sedative in the snork's arm. He then untied its boots and had little difficulty to drag it to a suspended scales near the lab workstation and slip its skinny body into the harness. Then he noted down the snork's weight; 49kg, if he ignored the extra 1kg from the chain. The young scientist took the chance to take a sample of the snork's blood, then took the mutant to the stretcher, quickly undressed it and buckled the straps of the stretcher over the snork's torso, arms and legs. Curiously, the mutant had no body hair, and Vitaly presumed it had to be related with the mutation. He measured the snork and noted down its height; 160cm.

Then the young scientist noticed a rusty dog tag around the snork's neck. That could contain precious information! He took it carefully and looked at it. In one side there was an insignia that Vitaly had no idea of what it meant, and it was barely visible with all the rust and the dry bloodstains on the metal; in the other side there was something written on it, probably the blood type, and below there was the surname and the name. Only the name was still poorly readable.

It said «Mikhail».

Vitaly looked sadly to the mutant lying sedated on the stretcher. So, that thing had been a soldier and became _that_ while serving the nation. Did Mikhail's family know what happened? Had the mutation been painful? Was it quick? Would the snork remember its name, its life before the mutation?

Shaking his head, the young scientist left the dog tag and the old uniform aside, on his desk; he would think about that later, now he had to hurry up before the snork woke up. He walked to the snork again and removed the dirty gas mask, and couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in surprise; the snork had a human face. A perfectly human face, were not the lips missing. It was a typically Slavic face, maybe a little too thin, with a broken nose, blonde lashes, blonde eyebrows and dishevelled and dirty blonde hair. Carefully, Vitaly opened one of the snork's eyes; pale blue. Then, even more carefully, the young scientist examined the snork's mouth; the scarred tissue around the exposed gums indicated that the lips had been somehow torn off (Vitaly felt an unpleasant shiver run down his spine), but despite the putrid breath the snork's teeth were white and perfect (another shiver, and Vitaly prayed the creature would never bite him…).

He noted down the snork's characteristics and hurried to go find it new clothes, boots and an electric shaver because the snork's hair, like that, had no salvation.

* * *

The snork took in a sharp breath and opened its eyes, and was glad that it was back to its little dark cell, away from that horrible strong light from the place the scientist had taken it.

The scientist… his scent was there. And another scent, unknown, but that was good and made the snork's stomach rumble loudly. Turning around slowly, the mutant saw the human sitting outside the metal bars door. And, next to the snork, there was a dish full of something that the snork didn't know what was… but it smelled good… and there was also a large bowl with water.

Vitaly smiled when the snork stood on its four and attacked the dish with raw meatballs:

"Mikhail?" He called, but the creature completely ignored him, grunting and snarling while devouring the meatballs. The young scientist tilted his head to one side. "I was going to run a MRI scan on you, but then I thought that, since you had been sedated for a while, you'd wake up in the middle of the scan and that wouldn't be nice… so… we'll do that tomorrow."

And again, Mikhail couldn't care less. The snork chewed and swallowed the last meatball and then sipped avidly the water from the bowl. Vitaly frowned; he had expected that the snork would show some… gratitude? Come on, he had gotten it rid of the old and damp uniform and had put it in a brand new one, had washed and bandaged its wounds and had stolen all those meatballs from the kitchen to give it… and the snork didn't even look at him!

A rescued dog would certainly show more gratitude than that creature!

However, and Vitaly's frown grew bigger, the snork wasn't an animal. It was a mutated human. It couldn't be treated like an animal… but it couldn't be treated like a human, either.

Right…?

With a sigh, Vitaly leaned against the metal bars. The snork had finished the water and looked at him, and began to growl lowly.

Why was the human still there? The snork looked at its left hand, wrapped in a bandage; what was that? It felt soft against its skin, and it protected the gash, the snork could lay over its hand without feeling discomfort on that wound. And now that the snork was aware of it, there was a new scent all over it, probably coming from the clothes and boots it wore; they were new, they were dry, they were comfortable and provided better protection against the cold around it, unlike its old and tattered uniform. And the snork blinked its eyes quickly, looking again to the scientist; its sight was better! Slowly and clumsily, Mikhail took a hand to its shaved head; the annoying thing covering its head was gone!

Observing the snork, Vitaly found himself smiling a little; seemed the mutant was now becoming aware of what had happened:

"Mikhail?" He tried again. And this time the snork looked and tilted its head, curiously. "Mikhail?"

The snork stared at the scientist for a moment, confused. «Mikhail», the name echoed in its mind. It sounded… like it had heard it before. Maybe from a stalker it had killed… But was the scientist addressing to it as «Mikhail»? It had to be, there were just the two of them in that place.

Mikhail felt again very curious about that human, who apparently wasn't a threat. Slowly, the snork crawled on all its four to the door of its cell and crouched, looking at the young scientist on the other side of the metal bars. Despite the weak light and prevailing darkness in the room, the snork was able to see the scientist properly; he had a round face, which wasn't imposing or threatening like the square and sharp faces of the soldiers, had brown eyes and short brown hair. The scientist was showing the snork his teeth, but it didn't look like a snarl… it wasn't aggressive. And that human had no weapons with him. The snork decided not to growl at that human and concluded it would be indeed interesting to study him. And maybe that human would be easy to trick.

Vitaly tilted his head and raised his eyebrows:

"Funny thing, why are you always so serious?" He mumbled, mostly to himself. Since he had been watching Mikhail, the snork had carried the same deadpan expression on its face, only widening or narrowing its eyes.

Mikhail simply blinked its eyes. With a sigh, Vitaly stood up, slowly, and much for his joy the snork didn't growl or stepped back. Maybe the mutant wasn't that bad, maybe it just needed to understand Vitaly wouldn't harm it:

"So… I'll be back later to give you more meatballs and water, ok? And tomorrow we'll go back to work." He began to walk away. "See you, Mikhail!"

Just in case, the snork looked around. Nope, it was alone! So, that Mikhail-thing was really meant to it. Would the human call it Mikhail from now on? Just like the stalkers outside called for each other, with… names? That was interesting, the snork thought and looked down to the cold stone floor, because a name was typically a human thing; according to the snork's experience in the Zone, that was how the humans identified and called for each other. The humans weren't practical or discreet, like the snorks, that used the scent and different vocalizations to recognize or call for each other.

That human was indeed a highly curious phenomenon of Nature, the snork concluded brilliantly.

* * *

 **Weee, review?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** thanks for the review! :3

* * *

A week gone by and Vitaly did nothing of what he had planned to do. He simply took food and water to the snork and watched it; _This way I'll gain its trust, it will associate me with good things like food and water!_ , the young scientist thought innocently, observing the mutant through the metal bars of the cell door. Truth to be told, the creature didn't look that horrid anymore, or threatening, and maybe all that fuss about the snork being a very dangerous predator was just because of the lack of lips and the ugly wound on its back. Said wound conveniently hidden under bandages and the upper part of the uniform, and the snork didn't look that bad.

As for the snork, it was very glad the human was feeding it. In fact, it was feeling better and soon it would have strength enough to properly deal with that human and escape. What the snork still couldn't understand was _why_ the human behaved like that; was he expecting to gain its trust? The snork would laugh if it had a voice… silly human, wasting his time… but giving the snork the perfect opportunity to study him. Vitaly had the habit of sitting on the floor, outside the cell, and look at the snork and speak something about running interesting tests on it. After eating, Mikhail would sit in front of the young scientist, looking at him through the metal bars of the door, scanning him with its pale blue eyes. All the snork knew was that Vitaly carried no weapons, that his overconfidence was overcoming fear in a drastic way and, despite his impressive height, he was as slender as the snork. Also, the mutant _felt_ Vitaly couldn't possibly be a soldier, or any other human from the Zone, because the brown-eyed man didn't have _the thing_ to be a fighter, a survivor. If the snork couldn't manage to get rid of the horrible thing around its neck, it would still have a chance against an enemy that wouldn't know how to attack or defend.

Sometimes, after the human leave, Mikhail tried to reach the buckle of the collar; it was precisely aligned with its nape, but the snork's fingers had some really annoying difficulty to function not as claws or paws, but as _fingers_ , like the humans', designed to grasp and pull things such as the leather strap buckled around the snork's neck. The mutant had also tried to simply tear off the collar, but the leather was too thick and after a few attempts with increasing violence it eventually received an electric shock. For the snork's utter annoyance, it was unable to try to move the collar and leave the buckle in a place of easier access (like forwards, instead of backwards… stupid humans), because the inside of the collar scratched the snork's neck everytime it tried to move it a little. Mikhail didn't like the idea of having to spend the rest of its life with that thing around its neck PLUS the chain; the chain could get stuck anywhere and make the mutant break its neck, that wasn't good.

* * *

The optimistic Vitaly decided that, after spending one entire week feeding and watching the snork, the mutant would at least tolerate his presence. Besides, the snork hadn't looked aggressive. It had even seemed… interested on Vitaly! All things considered, he didn't want to break that fragile tolerance by sticking a needle on the snork's arm and sedate it to run the MRI scan. No, Vitaly needed something harmless to further gain the mutant's trust…

While having breakfast, the young scientist had an epiphany; he suddenly remembered that, while he had been watching Mikhail, the snork not only didn't move its eyebrows but it also appeared to be unable to move its hands like a human. He decided that trying to make the snork mimic the movements of his hands was a great way to start working on the mutant.

And to make things more interesting, he would reward the snork with biscuits.

So, feeling bold, Vitaly made his way to Mikhail's cell, carrying a dish of raw meatballs, a bowl of water and plenty of butter biscuits in the pockets of his smock. He found the snork already waiting for him (waiting for breakfast), and he gingerly opened the door and did something he had never done before; he stepped in and stood inside the cell together with the food.

That was enough to make the snork growl and cast him a threatening stare that Vitaly completely missed, too enthusiastic talking about «work».

Always looking at the young scientist, Mikhail began to eat; the human was pushing his luck… one thing was having him outside, other was having him there, towering over the snork and its food.

When Mikhail finished breakfast, Vitaly held the chain and made his way outside. With a low snarl and feeling a soft tug on the chain, the snork went after the brown-eyed man with large strides. Like in the first time Vitaly had taken Mikhail to the lab, the young scientist was constantly looking at the snork. However, this time he wasn't scared, just looked attentively at how the mutant positioned its hands on the floor and how it moved.

Mikhail tensed its body lightly, warily, and wondered if the human had knocked his head somewhere to be suddenly so overconfident. Yet, much for the snork's dismay, Vitaly was still out of its reach, so attacking him on the way to the lab wasn't possible.

Finally, the lab. The snork got in and Vitaly followed it and closed the door. He released the chain, just like the last time, and went to crouch in front of the snork. The mutant looked at him with big wide eyes, confused, and let out a growl when Vitaly raised his hand to the level of its face, keeping his fingers together and stretched:

"You kinda look like an alligator moving, you know?" He told the snork. "Can you move your hand like this?"

The snork just blinked its eyes, looking at Vitaly's hand. It was close enough to be bitten… why was the human doing it? Mikhail narrowed its eyes, grunted, and with a careful yet strong movement of his arm pushed Vitaly's hand away. The young scientist frowned:

"No, Mikhail! We're not going to fight!" His hand went back to the initial position and the snork growled lowly. "Just… put your hand like this!"

Mikhail stared at the young scientist again, then to his hand, then to its own hands. Then realisation hit the snork; Vitaly was trying to teach it how to move its hands like a human! It would finally understand how to unbuckle the collar! Clumsily, the snork finally mimicked the pose of Vitaly's hand.

And the young scientist smiled widely and for a moment he seemed to irradiate joy, sending a pleasant feeling to the snork. Mikhail tilted its head several times, utterly curious about that new thing it was feeling. Outside, it had never felt such a thing before; it was… weightless… good!:

"Good boy!" Vitaly exclaimed, took a biscuit from his pocket and pushed it to the snork.

More food!, the snork concluded as it eagerly devoured the treat; why did the human teach it the basics to get rid of the collar and even gave it more food for that? Mikhail looked curiously at Vitaly again and kept trying to mimic all the movements of his hands.

At the end of the day Vitaly left Mikhail in its cell and went back to the lab to write the conclusions of the day; _Hands able to perform movements as a human. Slight difficulty in moving the left thumb in all its width suggests lesion on a flexor tendon. Keen observer._ , Vitaly concluded with a proud smile; the snork hadn't taken long to mimic him perfectly.

Little did he know that in that exact moment the mutant was putting its recently acquired knowledge to the test. However, after fumbling for a while with the irritating collar, Mikhail let out a disappointed snarl and gave up. Seemed it needed more practise… Defeated, it crouched at the far end of its cell and looked at the door across the room; at any moment, Vitaly would bring it dinner.

But why had the human given it the extra food?

* * *

Another week gone by and Mikhail, a keen observer, as Vitaly had brilliantly described it, realised two things:

-one: Vitaly's pockets appeared to be the source of the extra food, and that needed further examination

-two: clasp its fingers around the lever handle of the door, pull it downwards and then pull the door open didn't seem impossible anymore, thanks to Vitaly's lessons on how to properly move fingers

And Vitaly innocently took Mikhail's interest on his pockets and its eagerness and quickness to mimic hand gestures such as holding pens and other small office objects as a sign of friendliness.

* * *

That day, when Vitaly went to lunch, he saw another man eating at one of the tables. He had a SSP-99 Ecologist suit and the headpiece was resting on the table next to him. The young scientist decided it would be interesting to talk with that man and he went to sit next to him:

"Good evening, sir!" He saluted. The man stopped the trajectory of his fork mid-action and looked at him, frowning lightly:

"I thought soldiers were supposed to stay upstairs! Tell your goddamned general I'll give him the reports after lunch!" He replied. Vitaly laughed nervously; he had left the smock in his lab:

"No no, I'm a scientist. I work here."

"Oh! I'm a scientist too, but I was hired to work outside with the Iskra Team; the Army wants someone among those stalkers." The man paused to drink and then shook hands with Vitaly. "Pavlo Andreichenko."

"Vitaly Fedor." The young scientist smiled. "You study anomalies, right?"

"Mostly, yes. What about you?"

"I'm studying a living snork." He smiled proudly. "It's a very clever creature! I'm starting to believe it learns easily by the process of observing and mimicking."

"A living snork? I saw a dead one, few days ago. One of the stalkers said they're pesky and dangerous, especially in packs." Pavlo chuckled. "I don't believe they're very clever… if they were, they wouldn't attack men who carry fire-weapons. And if they did learn by observing, so by now we'd be all dead; they'd probably have figured out how to fire a gun!"

Vitaly frowned a little, playing with the mashed potatoes:

"Well, my snork did what I asked and was rewarded for it. A little like Pavlov and his dogs."

"But Pavlov's dogs did something natural. «Your» snork probably thinks you're a well of food, doctor." Pavlo burst out laughing, truly amused. "Maybe that's why it didn't bite your head off yet!"

"It has a collar with sensors, it can't attack at all…" Vitaly felt his neck and ears redden with shame; he had expected interest on his work, maybe a few questions about Mikhail. Yet what really bothered him was Pavlo questioning his relationship with the snork.

The mutant didn't see him as a source of food… did it?

* * *

Mikhail observed as Vitaly walked down the stairs and brought its lunch. However, unlike the previous days, the snork couldn't feel the same enthusiasm on the human. Vitaly looked a little downcast as he opened the cell door and pushed the dish and bowl towards the snork:

"Hurry up Mikhail, I want to clear up something…" The young scientist mumbled.

Yet the snork took its sweet time to eat and drink, and it let out an offended grunt as Vitaly held the chain and tugged it with a little more strength than the usual.

The snork immediately understood something was wrong. But what?

They made their way to the lab and, once inside with the door closed, Vitaly pretended to faint and fell on the floor, over his stomach. And for a moment all he could hear was his own breathing and Mikhail's noisy breathing, not far from him.

Then… the sound of the snork's boots on the floor and the heavy chain dragging after it, towards Vitaly. The young scientist, whose face was hidden between his arms, smiled; the snork would surely show some concern! He felt and listened as the snork circled him, smelling him. Then Mikhail stilled and let out a low, guttural sound.

Vitaly did nothing.

Mikhail tilted its head, confused; the human wasn't dead… maybe it had decided to sleep. It was the perfect occasion to eat the extra food, open the door and leave. Yes, Mikhail was a genius! With a little grunt, the snork pulled Vitaly's smock, slipped a hand into a pocket and grabbed a handful of biscuits.

The young scientist cursed mentally, but decided to remain still and maybe, after finishing the biscuits, the snork would worry about him.

But the snork emptied his pockets and then Vitaly heard it walk away. He moved his head, slowly, to look at the mutant.

It was calmly making its way to the door!

Vitaly jumped to his feet, outraged:

"Mikhail, don't!" He exclaimed. The snork stopped and glanced behind, widening its eyes a little. What a timing! The mutant began to growl and decided to ignore Vitaly, proceeding its way to the door. Yeah, Vitaly was tall… and then what? He wasn't a threat… "Mikhail…" Vitaly called again, menacingly.

But the snork crouched near the door and stretched a hand to the handle. Letting out a barrage of profanity, the young scientist strode to the mutant and didn't even bother to pull the chain. He went directly to the collar.

Rookie mistake.

The snork snarled furiously and turned around swiftly, feeling the inside of the collar tear the skin of its neck. But that was nothing compared to what it had been through in the Zone. The collar electrocuted it, but by then its jaws were already firmly closed on Vitaly's arm… and the electric shock wasn't enough to make the furious snork release its prey.

Screaming in pain and terror, Vitaly stumbled backwards and fell, dragging Mikhail along. The young scientist still held the collar on a firm grip, but the taste of blood in the snork's mouth made it insensible to the dizziness and numbness from the electric shock and the scratching from the inside of the collar, and the snork stood on its four, with its legs and arms on each side of Vitaly's body, pinning him down. And biting, biting mercilessly at the young scientist's arm.

Vitaly had absolutely no idea of what to do, of how to escape. He tried to hit the snork with his other hand, but the mutant _did not let go_. The brown-eyed man cried, feeling Mikhail's teeth dig deeper and deeper into his arm, and he tried to shake the mutant off.

In the struggle Mikhail received more shocks, but the mutant could barely feel them now; thanks to Vitaly feeding it, the mutant was stronger and the adrenaline rushing through its veins made it unable to sense anything physical. And the more Vitaly whirled helplessly under the snork, the stronger and more viciously the mutant bit. Mikhail managed to move a hand and wrap its fingers around Vitaly's neck, who let out a sharp breath.

Then Mikhail moved its eyes to look at Vitaly… and there was water coming from his brown eyes! The mutant stood still, looking sharply at the human's face. The stench of fear was back.

Why did the human have water coming from his eyes? Why had he stopped fighting? Why wasn't he trying to kill the mutant?

The snork released Vitaly's arm and stood on the same place, looking curiously at the human.

Vitaly stared back at the snork, his eyes wide, and he slowly moved them to look at the bloody mess that was his arm… and noticed blood dripping slowly from the snork's neck. He frowned:

"Oh shit, what have I done?" He mumbled. The snork blinked its eyes, incredulous; what had _he_ done? And what about what _the snork_ had done? Wasn't Vitaly planning to kill the mutant for that? A human outside would, by no means, let a snork walk away after being attacked like that… unless the snork was a very good fighter and finished the human.

Why did that human care? It made no sense! Mikhail really wanted to discover _why_. So, it allowed Vitaly to change to a sitting position and, with trembling hands, unbuckle the collar. Something the snork had wanted for a while, but that in that moment didn't interest it at all; the emotions written all over Vitaly's face seemed much more interesting. The snork had never seen anything like that before.

The young scientist shook his head, horrified; he had completely forgotten the inside of the collar could harm the snork. Apparently, there was no skin left where the collar had been. On the bright side, seemed no damage had been done to any major vein. Vitaly bit his lower lip nervously and looked at his injured arm; he usually walked around with rolled up sleeves and the skin had been mercilessly torn off by Mikhail's teeth, and the flesh had been pierced deeply. Maybe he would need stitches…

But he didn't want to go to the infirmary. He didn't want anyone to know what had happened. It was a luck nobody had come in the lab… or by then the snork would be dead, and Vitaly would be utterly humiliated.

Yet he was already humiliated. Everybody had told him the creature standing before him was a dangerous predator… and he had allowed Mikhail's slenderness and certainly calculated quietude to trick him. Vitaly laughed, sadly, making the snork wide its pale blue eyes:

"So human…" He sighed, looking tiredly the mutant in the eye. And he noticed, for the first time, that despite the bright colour Mikhail's eyes were shineless, dead.

Those words, and the way those words were spoken, made the snork feel heavy inside. It had never felt like that before. It looked at the wound in Vitaly's arm and felt something move above his eyes; what reasons did it have to harm that human? He hadn't invaded its territory, he hadn't harmed it, he had even fed it and taught it useful things like moving its hands like a human. It should have waited longer, wait until the human turned his back and then flee.

Sheepishly, Mikhail looked up to Vitaly:

"You're frowning." The young scientist stated and mimicked the mutant. Mikhail snorted; seemed humans had a name for everything…

They remained silent for a while, looking at each other. Mikhail's noisy breathing seemed incredibly loud. Then, slowly, Vitaly stood up and walked backwards, reluctantly, always keeping an eye on the snork, that didn't move from its spot. Vitaly went to the medical cabinet and then returned to his original place in front of the snork, carrying a first-aid kit:

"I must be the dumbest man on earth..." Vitaly mumbled as he soaked a cotton ball in oxygenated water. Wincing, he disinfected the bite wound in his arm. The snork sighed and decided to agree with Vitaly; yes, he was a dumb human for not being a threat. That only made him a victim.

Vitaly clumsily bandaged his arm and hoped it would heal. Now… hopefully the snork would let him take care of its neck. He knew he should be terrified, he should be running away and only come back with soldiers to deal with the snork… but he was too shocked to even care about it. All he knew was that mutant, despite attacking him… hadn't kill him. The mutant had even stopped the attack.

There had to be an explanation for that, and Vitaly wanted to know if the mutant had felt anything like guilt, or if it was a Machiavellian creature plotting a complex plan against Vitaly.

The snork growled, but allowed Vitaly to clean and bandage its neck. It growled louder when Vitaly reached out for the collar and buckled it around its neck again, but let the human take it back to the solitude of its cell.

* * *

Vitaly came out of the shower and bandaged the wound in his arm again. It hurt terribly and looked really ugly, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore and, by some miracle, seemed it wasn't infected. Changing to his pyjama, the young scientist made his way to the bed and sat heavily on it, then hid his face on his hands.

He felt exhausted.

Disappointed.

Terrified; how would he deal with the mutant now?

But there was also this little hope, feeding from the memory of the snork looking at him, _frowning_ , allowing him to live. The mutant could have killed him, but it hadn't. Vitaly laughed sadly; he really wanted to believe the snork had some good will left. Seemed his life had left him with a desperate need to find goodness in those around him.

* * *

For the next two days, Vitaly didn't show up. Mikhail wondered if the human had died, and if so, who would be the next human appointed to «work» with it.

But on the third day the young scientist showed up, and he had a dish of raw meatballs and a bowl of water with him. The snork looked curiously at the human; seemed he was fine, but the scent of blood prevailed on him… and the fear, always the scent of fear. The confidence was gone, even though he tried to look… not nervous at all.

Why was the human there, again, and why wasn't he starving the snork like the soldiers had done? Why was he still feeding it, increasing its strength?

Vitaly pushed the dish and the bowl towards the snork, closed the door again and sat in front of it, with his legs crossed. The mutant kept looking at him, curiously, and it frowned again, tilting its head to one side.

Why?, they both thought. With a joyless chuckle, Vitaly ran a hand through his short brown hair:

"You didn't kill me." He stated, looking at the mutant through the metal bars of the cell door. "You could have, but you didn't. I wonder, can you understand me? Yes-" And Vitaly nodded, slowly. "- or no?" And he shook his head.

Mikhail struggled to nod properly, hopefully the brown-eyed man would understand. Vitaly began to rock himself back and forth:

"You didn't trust me, did you? You were just… studying me. Right?" The snork made something similar to a nod. "But you didn't kill me. Is that because I give you food?"

Mikhail hesitated and narrowed its eyes; how to explain? The food was obviously important, yes… but what the snork really wanted was to know WHY Vitaly was like that. So… so non-human. Carefully, the mutant slipped an arm between the metal bars and, pointing just like Vitaly had taught it, jabbed its index finger on Vitaly's chest. Maybe with a little too much strength, yet the young scientist seemed to get it:

"Me? You didn't kill me because of me?" The snork nodded, better this time, and Vitaly frowned.

That made absolutely no sense…

…or did it?

He caught himself smiling:

"Is it because I don't behave like… a human was supposed to behave with you?" Mikhail nodded and the young scientist smiled widely. "You're a curious guy, aren't you Mikhail?"

The snork supposed it was; it was always curious about the things that resulted from the anomalies, and about the environment surrounding it, it always wanted to know and understand what was happening around it. Its survival depended pretty much on that, or at least the snork thought so. Because, on the other hand, Vitaly took the snork's curiosity as a remain from its original human personality.

Maybe there was something he could do for that mutant.

Maybe _he_ was right when he had decided the snork wasn't that bad.

In fact… they had just talked. Vitaly stood up:

"So… we'll go back to work tomorrow." He said and walked away. Vitaly went to the lab, feeling light and thinking on how to proceed correctly with the snork. It was now clear that the mutant _understood_ people, even too well, so Vitaly would talk to the snork as if the snork was a man, just like him, and let body language do the rest. Concerning on how to handle Mikhail, Vitaly decided to try again a careful approach, let the snork understand he, by no means, was going to hurt it. Vitaly looked quickly to his injured arm; the bandage was hidden under the sleeves of his uniform jacket and smock. He was afraid of the mutant, afraid that, by some misunderstanding, Mikhail would attack him again. He would have to try to make it look like he wasn't scared at all, because showing fear would certainly allow the snork to behave like a predator. Also, Vitaly would never, ever again repeat the mistake of triggering a violent answer from the snork… like going directly to the collar…

He got in the lab and went to sit at his desk, looking absently to the place where a few bloodstains had been. He had started to write a report about the snork's blood, that he had analysed under the microscope the previous day; truth to be told he hadn't discovered anything new, but it had looked like a nice start to propose a few hypotheses since the snork's blood was very poor in erythrocytes. _It could explain the colour of its skin, although I believe something happened to its skin during the mutation… like a permanent burn.,_ Vitaly wrote, _It could also explain the fact that it is covered in open wounds, though it certainly didn't have time to heal properly outside._ , and before this Vitaly frowned and made a note to self to check on the snork's wounds, _Experiment: increase the number of red blood cells through food and medication,_ a pause and Vitaly crossed out the medication, _and see if/how it affects the snork._

There. He closed the notebook where he had been writing about the snork, signed the report and went to deliver it to the general.

Vitaly went upstairs and knocked on the door numbered 16 before getting in. The general, sitting on a desk, put his cigarette aside and smiled coldly:

"Ah, doctor. Good to see you." He said and stretched out his hand to hold the report Vitaly gave to him. He began to read. "Yesterday the cooker came here and said you're always taking meatballs from the fridge, and water. I presume you're feeding the snork…?"

"Yes, sir." Vitaly blushed, with the feeling he was about to be lectured. The general nodded, still reading the report:

"You see doctor, this base, this building underground, is secret. The other units in the Zone have no idea of its existence, and things are to remain like this. We receive water and many other supplies from outside the Zone… we have to be discreet. We can't waste food and water with things like… snorks. You can only feed the creature to stop it from dying, and when you want to do that, ask one of my soldiers to shoot down another mutant, like a flesh."

"But sir, to discover if the snork can be human again, I need to know how it reacts to human food. Besides, since its blood-"

"I doubt you'll increase its red blood cells with raw meatballs, doctor… but fine, I give you authorization to feed the snork." The general handed him the report again. "And, if you please, give me a report without strikethroughs, ok? It's not… professional."

"Yes, sir…" Vitaly mumbled shyly and looked down at his boots.

* * *

 **Weee, review?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:** thanks for the review! :D

* * *

On the next three days Mikhail felt how nervous and anxious Vitaly was, despite his brave attempts to hide it. Lets face it, the human deserved a prize for his bravery and another bite for his stupidity of always coming back, insisting. Sometimes, when they were together, the snork would feel a little tempted to try to escape again, now that it was sure Vitaly would be too terrified to interfere.

However, its curiosity took the best, and Mikhail decided it wanted to stay with that weird human and understand why; when its curiosity was satisfied, then it would think of what to do next.

The young scientist still carried no weapons and still used no violence with the snork, but there was something about the whole situation that confused the mutant and even bothered it. In the previous days, when interacting with the snork, Vitaly had made that facial expression of showing his teeth in a non-aggressive way, and had somehow transmitted this light and good feeling to the snork. The mutant had liked that feeling, that it had never experienced before… and now, despite Vitaly's smiles, the light and good feeling wasn't there. Also, there was little interaction; the young scientist would simply leave the snork wandering in the lab (after locking the door and hiding the key safely in a pocket of his cargos) and would occupy himself with the snork's old uniform, trying to find anything on the ragged clothes that could provide better information about who the snork had been.

The first day of exploring was exciting, and for a few times Mikhail felt that Vitaly was observing it, probably amused with the frenetic way that the snork looked everywhere and smelled everything, trying to gather as much information as possible with its movements compromised by the leather collar. Yet as the days followed, exploring became boring, and the mutant found a nice hiding place to take naps under Vitaly's desk; besides eating and not being beaten, sleeping rather peacefully was another advantage of having Vitaly around, and it was common sense among snorks that sleep and rest helped to increase strength.

On the 3rd day, Mikhail decided it was time to show the young man it was willing to cooperate, as long as Vitaly remained harmless. So, when the young scientist went to sit at the desk, Mikhail followed him. The brown-eyed scientist noticed that and pushed the officer chair away from the desk, creating a safe distance between his legs and the snork:

"One of these days you'll get tired of sleeping and resting, won't you Mikhail?" Vitaly asked absently as he tried, once more, figure out the destroyed information on the snork's dog tag. "I really need to make something else with you…"

Then he noticed the snork hadn't crawled to its spot under the desk… instead, it had crouched right beside the chair, and was looking at Vitaly's injured arm. The bite wound hadn't started to heal yet, and in that moment the young scientist presumed the smell of blood was finally alluring the mutant. For a moment Vitaly was ready to jump to his feet and run for dear life, and he actually half-stood from his seat when the snork raised its hand and placed it exactly over the wound. But the snork just did that, patting the wound in a rather clumsy way (and very painful for Vitaly), and the young scientist frowned and sat again:

"What, my arm? Yeah, you gave it a nasty bite… I'm surprised it didn't infect." He mumbled. The snork grunted; it knew it had bitten Vitaly… It tried a different approach and managed to take hold of the smock sleeve and pull it. "My sleeve? What's wrong with it?"

The snork looked up at Vitaly and narrowed its pale blue eyes in an expression that resembled incredulity. That made the young scientist smile sadly and tilt his head:

"I don't understand…" He excused. With a snarl, Mikhail patted one of its arms, that was entirely wrapped in bandages. Vitaly raised his eyebrows and rolled up the sleeve Mikhail had tugged, and also the uniform jacket sleeve. The snork made an almost perfect nod and patted again the bandaged area in Vitaly's arm.

Slowly, the young scientist uncovered the wound. He nearly screamed in terror when the snork placed its hands on the chair arm and hauled itself up a little, just enough to use its arms force to keep its back a little straighter. Then Mikhail leaned over Vitaly's arm and began to lick the wound.

Vitaly had perfect notion that his mouth was open to scream in case the snork bit him again. But all he felt on the slashed flesh was the snork's tongue. For a second, he thought about pulling his arm away from that source of bacteria and radioactivity and god-knows-what… yet would licking was a common practice to animals, humans and seemed even mutants did it, because saliva contains tissue factor that promotes coagulation. So if the snork was doing that to him, it could only mean the mutant wanted Vitaly to heal.

And the young scientist smiled widely and the snork looked up at him, with its eyes wide, mouth open and tongue hanging out in a quite comical way. Then Mikhail tilted its head; there, the good feeling again! Since its mission had been accomplished, the snork made its way to under the desk and lied down.

Vitaly bandaged his arm again, so excited he could barely hold the bandage right. He pulled his sleeves down and knelt on the floor, then dragged himself to under the desk.

And the snork frowned, because if that was already a tiny place just for it, then the place would be even tinier if it had to share with Vitaly:

"Now I understand I shouldn't have done this, I'm really sorry!" The young scientist said as he started to unbandage one of Mikhail's arms. "I just thought… you'd be more comfortable."

Poor human, his intention had been good. The snork watched as Vitaly exposed its wounds again and then crawled clumsily from under the desk to stand up again. Mikhail thought it would be able to peacefully lick its wounds without having to worry about a bloodsucker or a rodent or a pseudo-dog sneaking to it, attracted by the scent of blood:

"I wonder if, despite the lysosymes in your saliva, the poorness in erythrocytes in your blood is that serious to make you practically unable to heal properly. Especially your back." Vitaly said as he lied flat on his stomach, with his notebook and pen and looking curiously at the snork under the desk.

The snork frowned and stopped mid-action the wound licking. It didn't understand what Vitaly had said, but it had certainly been a complete nonsense; everybody knows that in the Zone there is never an opportunity to heal completely before receiving another combat wound. As Vitaly began to write, the snork proceeded what it was doing, and for the sake of privacy even turned around a little, so that Vitaly was left facing its back:

"If I get a saliva sample, maybe I'll be able to separate the coagulators and work them chemically to make some sort of ointment for your back…" The young scientist said absently while writing. "Also, this is the perfect opportunity to introduce you to human food, like green leafy vegetables. Maybe this will help with coagulation and also with the red blood cells."

* * *

At lunch time, Vitaly wrapped Mikhail's arms and hands in new bandages and leaded the snork to the corridor. The mutant thought they were going to its cell, so it was utterly surprised when the young scientist leaded it in the opposite direction.

All those new scents! The snork looked around curiously then up to Vitaly; his enthusiasm was back, and Mikhail realised Vitaly's feelings were highly contagious:

"Today we're having lunch together!" Vitaly told as they made their way to the kitchen. "Usually it's only me in the canteen, so I think it's an environment quiet enough to get you used to places other than the lab."

New places? That sounded like an adventure! And new places with Vitaly? That sounded like a harmless adventure. Mikhail liked the idea of harmless adventures, with lots of things to explore without having to worry about watching its back, since Vitaly wasn't a threat.

They reached the canteen and the snork was momently stunned with the quantity of new scents in that place. Many of them were unknown, the mutant had never smelled them outside. The canteen was empty, but there was a fat bald man behind a counter, from where many of the scents came.

The snork began to growl and the cooker frowned grimly:

"Doctor, why is a snork in my canteen?" He asked annoyedly and stepped back a little. Vitaly offered him an innocent smile:

"Mikhail's starting a diet." He explained as he prepared two trays:

"You gave it a name! Doctor, that monster isn't a pet, and it could perfectly start its diet in whatever obscure place you've been keeping it!" The cooker replied and handed Vitaly a large dish with food. "Besides, that thing is a carnivore! Carnivores don't eat _borshch_!"

"Mikhail was already named Mikhail, it's what its dog tag said… And lunch isn't always _borshch_ …" Vitaly mumbled and served himself a glass of water. Holding his tray with a hand and Mikhail's chain with the other, the young scientist placed the tray on a nearby table. "Can you please put the _borshch_ in a bowl? And give me a bowl with water? Large bowls, please."

"I'm surprised you won't make the snork use the cutlery." The cooker laughed but did what Vitaly asked him.

Mikhail kept glancing over its shoulder and growling menacingly at the cooker when Vitaly leaded it to the table and pulled a chair:

"Now, you're going to sit here." Vitaly instructed and tapped the chair. With a grunt, the snork hauled itself up to the chair and rested one knee on the plain surface of the seat, looking eagerly to the tray with food right in front of it. Placing both hands on each side of the tray, it bent down towards the bowl and smelled the strange food inside it. The snork had never seen such a thing in the Zone, but it had a nice smell. Mikhail gave the compact liquid a tentative lick… and decided it liked it. The mutant began to sip and chew avidly the content of the bowl.

Vitaly looked at the snork for a moment; that wasn't exactly sitting… but seemed Mikhail wasn't picky when it came to food. The young scientist looked victoriously to the cooker and sat next to the snork.

* * *

After lunch, the young scientist decided he was going to take Mikhail upstairs, to the gym; he had found the gym some weeks ago, accidentally, when he had been looking for the general's office. It was the only room in the floor above that wasn't locked, and Vitaly had thought it was a nice place to observe the snork. The only thing that bothered Vitaly was that he would have to remove the collar from Mikhail's neck… and even though the snork had been calm and had come to peaceful terms with him, he was afraid that some exercise would result on an excited and aggressive mutant.

So, on the stairs to the 1st floor, Vitaly stopped and Mikhail stopped next to him, looking up at him. The brown-eyed man changed to a squatting position:

"Look Mikhail… I'm going to trust you, ok? Can you understand? I'll take you to this nice place where you can run and jump… just don't bite me again, ok?"

 _Trust._

According to Mikhail's experience on living in pack, trust it what keeps the pack together and in one piece as long as possible, though there is never much time in the Zone to stay in one piece. Vitaly trusting it meant the human was accepting it and agreeing on watching its back. But Vitaly had already been doing that for a while, for not being a threat. So Mikhail couldn't understand at all, at least in that moment, why Vitaly was talking about «trusting».

They proceeded their way and the snork frowned thoughtfully; what about it, did it trust Vitaly already? One thing was allowing the human to be around it and interact with it and vice-versa because it didn't consider Vitaly an immediate threat. So, there was no big reason to be stressed about the brown-eyed man's presence. Other thing was actually _trust_ the human, even if he, at some point, revealed himself to be a threat. Considering it was letting the scientist take it to this new place, and that it had just eaten his human food, and that earlier that day it had showed it wanted the wound in Vitaly's arm to go away… Mikhail concluded its curiosity about Vitaly had leaded it to start trusting the human.

Vitaly pushed open the heavy gym doors and they got in. The gym was a wide white room, with exercise equipment, punching bags, weights, a net with balls inside, two portable goals and a couple of big yoga balls. Vitaly closed the doors behind them and kneeled next to the snork:

"There, have fun." He said as he unbuckled the collar around the snork's neck.

Mikhail looked around, enthusiastic; such a nice day with so many different and new scents! In the air, among other scents, there was a strong scent to humans, but the only one there was Vitaly.

And Vitaly was harmless.

So the snork happily trotted away from the non-threatening human and began to explore the gym.

Vitaly, holding the chain and the collar, gave a few shy steps after the snork, but then he concluded it would be safer to remain there, near the door. Just in case. But Mikhail had licked the bite wound in his arm, that gesture had to have a harmless meaning. The young scientist really wanted to believe the snork wouldn't attack him again.

He gave it no reasons for that.

So he relaxed a little and observed Mikhail trot around the gym, smelling everything curiously. Then the snork began to run, and to leap over things and to the floor, and rolling happily, and running again, and jumping, and rolling, and crawling, and running, and leaping. Vitaly began to feel tired just by watching the restless mutant, and he even sat on the floor.

That was when Mikhail bolted towards him and Vitaly winced, just to relax when the snork stopped right in front of him, with wide eyes and lightly raised eyebrows.

They looked at each other for a moment, and Vitaly had the opportunity to notice that the snork's breathing seemed normal and that it wasn't sweating. The mutant looked like it hadn't moved _at all_. The young scientist smiled, looking into that pair of shineless pale blue eyes:

"Seems you have some high endurance, isn't it?" He commented.

The snork snarled and pushed him, then creeped sideways, slowly, tilting its head.

Mikhail wanted to play, and since it and Vitaly appeared to be a pack now, they obviously had to play. Playing is very useful; it's a training for real fighting situations, it bonds and it establishes who's the stronger and therefore the leader.

Vitaly frowned and for a moment he was scared. But the snork looked like a dog defying its owner to play, so he smiled, left the collar aside, undressed his smock and tried to move like the snork; keeping at its level seemed the best option in that moment, he didn't want to ruin something harmless by towering above the mutant.

The snork had a lot of fun watching as Vitaly struggled to move like it, and the young scientist made a note to self that snorks surely had a highly developed motor coordination. He eventually gave up on trying to act like a snork and stood on his knees, avoiding with very little success the constant blows from Mikhail. It hurt a little because the snork wasn't exactly delicate, maybe it wasn't even aware of the strength it was putting into playing with Vitaly. Still the young scientist was sure the snork wasn't using _all_ of its strength.

That, judging by the way the mutant moved, should be a factor to considerate.

Vitaly ended up curled in a ball, laughing nervously as the snork continued to claw and kick and push and punch and slap at him. Luckily for him, Mikhail knew it wouldn't do any good to the human's spirit if it began to bite too. That sound Vitaly made was interesting, and even though it sounded a little forced the snork liked it.

Then it stilled and tensed up, looking at the door. Mikhail began to growl. Vitaly understood there was someone coming and he hurried to stretch his hand to the abandoned collar and pull it by the chain:

"Sorry, play-time is over…" He whispered as he quickly buckled the collar around the snork's neck; the mutant had already given a step to the door. Vitaly placed the collar on place right on time; two soldiers came in, one very tall with broad shoulders and with a scar on his forehead, the other shorter and younger but still bulky.

The two soldiers came to a sudden halt and the scarred one frowned:

"Doctor, why is that creature here?" He asked. The younger one looked curiously at the snork, whose growls had grown considerably louder. Vitaly scrambled to his feet and picked up his smock:

"I was watching the way Mikhail moves. It's impressive, it surely requires a very well-developed motor coordination-"

"Elephants walk on their fours too and nobody cares about their motor coordination." The soldier replied dryly. "According to our orders, this snork is supposed to stay in a cell, in the 3rd floor, and only leave it to go to your lab. We are allowed to shoot it down if we find it wandering."

"Well, Mikhail wasn't wandering." Vitaly tugged the chain softly and began to walk away. Mikhail hesitated, but followed Vitaly, always looking at the two soldiers and growling at the top of its lungs. "I was observing it."

"Observe it in your lab, that's why you got one." The soldier grunted in response.

* * *

As they made their way downstairs, Mikhail _felt_ how shaken Vitaly was. The snork couldn't understand why the two humans, who were enemies/predators/preys to the snorks, had acted in such a predatory way towards Vitaly. They were all _humans_ , they were all the same species, WHY did they behave like the brown-eyed scientist was a prey? Yes, it was true that Vitaly didn't have an imposing character, wasn't obviously a leader and was perfectly harmless… he was weak… so why pick up on him?

Weakened snorks were simply left behind for the greater good of the pack.

They were going to the lab when Mikhail stopped suddenly and began to growl lowly again. Vitaly didn't even have the time to frown, because the general appeared in his vision field. He sighed, sadly, and mentally prepared to be lectured again.

With a couple of large strides the general was right in front of Vitaly, ignoring completely the growling mutant at the end of the tense chain that came from its collar:

"I was looking for you in your lab, doctor." The general stated with a serious face. "Surprisingly, you and your subject of study weren't there, neither in the 3rd floor. Also, the cooker told me he had a… guest, today."

"We were in the gym… I was observing Mikhail…" Vitaly replied. The general raised an eyebrow:

"You gave it a name? It's a monster, doctor… not a pet to make tourism with in the base."

"Mikhail had a dog tag… with «Mikhail» written on it. Mikhail was a soldier and the mutation occurred while he was on duty." Vitaly explained patiently, but had to raise his voice a little so that the general could hear him over the growling mutant. "I started its diet today, and then I took it to the gym so that it could move freely and I realised the snork's motor coordination is excellent and-"

"Animals walk on their fours too and nobody's making a fuss about it." The general replied and crossed his arms. Vitaly sighed again; for some reason, he wasn't surprised to hear that again:

"But Mikhail didn't originally walk on its fours… It's something it learned since the mutation!" Vitaly's face brightened with a smile. "If I find a way to know exactly when the mutation occurred, plus Mikhail's current age, then I'll know how long it took to master its motor coordination like that! Sir, is there any archive with the names of the soldiers who came to the Zo-"

"That's classified, doctor." The general maintained his serious expression. "But I'm glad you're making progress on your work. I can't wait to read your conclusions."

And, with that, he walked away.

Slowly, Mikhail's growls faded and it looked up, to Vitaly, whose expression had become sad. The young scientist looked down at it and offered it a weak smile. Mikhail snarled; it didn't like when Vitaly's enthusiasm was gone:

"If only you could talk…" He sighed, scanning Mikhail's practically human face. Its hair was growing again and, now that the blonde hair was clean, Vitaly thought the receding hairline didn't look good on the snork. It made its face look skinnier than what it already was. The young scientist decided that, since the snork had played with him, so he could make something nice for the mutant too. He smiled again, cheerfully, and by the light raising on the snork's eyebrows Vitaly understood Mikhail was sensible to what he felt. "Come on, I'll take you to another place."

* * *

This other place had Vitaly's scent everywhere, and the snork immediately considered it a safe area. The young scientist threw his smock over the bed and chuckled:

"I've just been scolded on how I can't take you anywhere… but here we are, in my room." He said and released the chain. Mikhail began to walk around, smelling everything. Vitaly opened the bathroom door and got in. Just as expected, little later the mutant was peeking into the bathroom, curiosity written all over its face, and it got in and came to stand in front of Vitaly.

The young scientist had an electric shaver in hand and placed it on the floor in front of the snork:

"I'm going to make you a stylish snork, Mikhail." He informed and, carefully, placed his hand on the snork's hair.

Mikhail tensed for an instant but, if Vitaly had allowed it to play, so Mikhail would allow the human to «make it stylish», whatever it meant. Maybe that was how humans played. The snork let out a grunt when Vitaly began to stir its blonde hair; that actually felt really nice. And weird, it was so… anti-natural, that someone touched the snork with harmless intentions.

Vitaly concluded it was safe to touch Mikhail's head. Then he switched on the electric shaver and let out a booming laugh as the snork jumped backwards, startled with the working shaver on the floor:

"Look, it's just noisy! It won't hurt you!" He promised when Mikhail began to growl at the shaver. To prove he was speaking the truth, he rolled up the sleeve of his uninjured arm and shaved it a little. "See?"

* * *

Mikhail concluded humans played by making «hairstyles». It was quite a boring activity and the means used to achieve said «hairstyle» were quite annoying. But Vitaly seemed very happy with Mikhail's «hairstyle»; it was a «mohawk», according to the human. For the snork, that had touched its head frenetically when Vitaly declared the «hairstyle» was done, it felt more like a boar; boars were bald with some sort of mane.

Vitaly took the snork to the canteen again to have dinner. The cooker looked curiously at the mutant, but made no comments. Just like at lunch, the mutant kept growling to the man behind the counter… and just like at lunch, it wasn't picky with the food.

Indeed, it had been a glorious day full of adventure! And unlike the adventurous days outside, Mikhail went to sleep intact. Before leaving the snork alone in the cell, Vitaly unwrapped the bandages that covered the wounds on its arms and hands. Then he left, leaving the snork alone in the dim room.

The mutant spent some time looking at the door on the top of the stairs, at the other side of the room. It could hear its own breathing in the silent room, and for a moment Vitaly's contagious enthusiasm and happiness prevailed with the snork. Mikhail couldn't really understand why the other humans were so nasty to such an interesting creature.

But then the good vibes faded away, slowly.

* * *

 **Weee, review?**


	4. Chapter 4

On the following day, before taking the snork to the canteen, Vitaly leaded it to the lab so that he could bandage its wounds again. He then noticed, much for his surprise, that the wounds didn't look that fresh anymore.

He really needed to see the snork's saliva under the microscope, and when they returned from the canteen Vitaly decided he had to find a way to obtain a saliva sample; it didn't seem nice to slip a swab into Mikhail's mouth, that would probably irritate the snork and Vitaly already knew that an angry Mikhail wasn't a pleasant company. He then had the brilliant idea of asking the snork to lick a petri dish.

The snork was crouching in the middle of the lab, observing as Vitaly looked for something on the lab workstation, and raised its eyebrows when the young scientist kneeled in front of him:

"Mikhail, lick this." Vitaly said. The snork frowned; Vitaly was holding a transparent mini-dish right in front of the snork's face, and the mutant snarled and pushed Vitaly's hand away. "Not like that!" With a resigned sigh, he stood up and when he returned to his spot in front of the snork he had another petri dish.

Mikhail tilted its head, sensing that Vitaly was about to do something. Much to its surprise, Vitaly licked one of the petri dishes:

"See? Like this!" He exclaimed, handing the snork the other petri dish. Mikhail looked at the little object with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out if it had any food. Maybe it had a nice taste. Curious, it gave the petri dish a tentative lick.

The disappointed look the snork cast at the young scientist made him laugh:

"Why are you making that face, it wasn't that bad!" Vitaly exclaimed and stood up. It wasn't that bad? It didn't have taste at all! Mikhail grunted and resumed to watch Vitaly while the young scientist worked on the lab worstation.

And, for some minutes, the lab was silent.

Then Mikhail began to feel intrigued, because Vitaly seemed very interested with the transparent thing he had told the snork to lick. What was so interesting about a tasteless mini-dish with drool? With a grunt, the mutant decided to take a look on that and made its way to the workstation.

Vitaly was indeed entertained observing the saliva sample under the microscope, but still he heard Mikhail's boots and the chain dragging after the mutant. That didn't disturb him, he was already used to have the snork wandering around the lab before retreating to its little lair under the desk. Mikhail did a little reconnaissance every day and Vitaly supposed it had to be related with its life outside.

He heard the snork stop next to him, but still didn't give it much attention. Only when the snork raised its arm and placed it quite heavily on the smooth and dark surface of the workstation table, Vitaly looked away from the microscope. He couldn't help but wince when the snork curled its hand into a fist, stretching the skin and the still open wounds, and winced harder when he noticed the closed fist tense, accentuating the tendons and the lean muscles and the mass of scars and the still open wounds on the snork's arm as the mutant pulled itself up with a snarl.

Vitaly blinked his eyes quickly and tensed up; he was used to look down at the snork… not to have to look up at it. For a moment he thought about standing up from the stool he was sitting on, but Mikhail passed its other arm over Vitaly's back, supporting the weight of its torso on the closed fists on the table, standing behind Vitaly and looking down at him and to all the unknown objects on the workstation.

The young scientist did his best not to freeze; nothing wrong had happened when he had let the snork play with him in the gym, so nothing bad would happen to him in that moment. Exhaling slowly, Vitaly turned his attention to the microscope again, doing his best to ignore the snork's breathing brushing the skin of his neck everytime the mutant moved its head.

Mikhail tilted its head curiously, looking around, then fixing its gaze on the human under him. The scent of fear was back, even though Vitaly was acting like nothing was happening. But the scent of blood was strong too, and the snork approached its head to Vitaly's neck and rested softly its exposed teeth exactly over Vitaly's external jugular vein. It immediately felt a frightened shiver and, once more, it thought about simply biting Vitaly in the neck, kill him and flee. Plus, the vein pulsing against its teeth was making that idea quite appealing. The snork could already feel tension building up in its shoulders and crawling down its arms and up its neck and jaw.

But then again… what reasons did it have to kill Vitaly? Vitaly wasn't in its territory, Vitaly hadn't attacked or harmed it, and it wasn't even hungry. The snork recalled the day before, when the young scientist had played with the snork and had made that interesting sound, and how the brown-eyed man had irradiated that good feeling.

The snork snarled and moved its head abruptly, brushing its teeth up Vitaly's neck and ending up with its nose on Vitaly's brown hair. That tickled Mikhail's skin and exposed gums and the mutant snorted, amused, because it had never felt tickles before. It grabbed some hair with its teeth and pulled:

"Ouch, Mikhail!" Vitaly exclaimed at the same time he widened his eyes and tensed up in pain, finally looking away from the microscope. Yet, despite the painful tension of having his hair pulled, he relaxed visibly.

The scent of fear vanished. The snork grunted and let go of Vitaly's hair, only to find one of his ears extremely interesting and pull it with its teeth.

The young scientist let out a resigned sigh as the snork attacked his ear. Then… he had a brilliant idea.

* * *

Mikhail watched, curious, as Vitaly crossed his bedroom towards the closet wall and opened one door, that had an inside mirror:

"Come here, Mikhail." Vitaly called and kneeled on the floor. The snork walked to the young scientist… but it came to a halt, looking with wide eyes to the… man? crouching next to Vitaly. No, it wasn't a man, it didn't look like a man, men don't have a permanent wild grin on their faces and don't have collars around their necks. Nevermind, whatever that thing was, was to be destroyed!

The snork began to growl and Vitaly realised just in time the mutant was going to attack the mirror. He hurried to push the door closed and couldn't help but giggle when the snork raised its eyebrows and widened its pale blue eyes, looking at the exact place where its opponent had been:

"Come here." Vitaly said, gesturing with his hand, and the snork went to crouch next to the young man. Vitaly opened the door and there was the thing again! Mikhail began to growl… but then Vitaly's head was somehow floating above the thing. How was that possible?

Mikhail looked from the mirror to Vitaly with wide eyes, and the brown-eyed man giggled again:

"It's just a mirror, silly boy." He explained patiently. "That blue-eyed guy, that's you! Come on, you must have seen yourself before, at least in a puddle of water." And Vitaly moved a little closer to the snork, so that both of them were in the mirror, and waved his hand. Mikhail looked from Vitaly waving his hand next to it to the other Vitaly, astonished. Utterly confused. Just to be sure, the snork peeked behind the door, but no one was there.

It looked to the mirror again, frowning; so, humans had a device to see themselves. Why? Seeing themselves was stupid, the only way to survive was seeing _the others_! And no, the snork had never seen itself before like Vitaly was supposing; it had always been too dark, both the water and the place where the mutant had lived, and before Vitaly removing the annoying thing that had covered Mikhail's head its sight had been quite poor. Mikhail tilted its head, watching its reflection; the snork concluded it actually resembled a human, like Vitaly, and it even had ears like the young scientist, and its hair looked like Vitaly's too, not like boar fur like the snork had initially thought. Yet there was something that wasn't right at all… Mikhail looked to Vitaly, who was smiling at it; the brown-eyed man had… _something_ … that made him feel and look nice and harmless. And now that the snork was aware of how it looked like, it concluded Vitaly's nice and harmless looks had nothing to do with his facial features or the fact of not carrying weapons. Mikhail looked at its reflection again and moved a little, observing the snork in the mirror.

Mikhail, looking at the Mikhail in the mirror, concluded it didn't look nice and harmless, and it definitely didn't have a nice and harmless aura. It could swear it had seen creatures like it, lipless, that moved on its fours and growled… but those had something covering the upper part of their heads, something that now Mikhail didn't have. Yet the memory of those creatures made the snork relate its reflection much more with them than with Vitaly; the creatures in its memory didn't look nice and harmless, and didn't give Mikhail the feeling of nice and harmless like Vitaly did when the snork thought about him. Because those creatures, the snork knew for sure, would attack, not necessarily Mikhail, but they _would attack_. Vitaly wouldn't…

Vitaly's smile died, slowly, as he watched how the snork's face changed from curious to… sorrowful? It was difficult to tell since Mikhail's most identifiable expressions were those it had learned from Vitaly, mimicking him. And even those expressions weren't perfect at all; the snork still didn't use all of its facial muscles and the ones around its lipless mouth were damaged beyond repair or seriously compromised in their functions.

At least, until that moment.

The young scientist observed as the snork frowned lightly and narrowed its eyes in an almost imperceptible way, at the same time it clenched its jaw and the damaged muscles in the mouth area twitched, almost imperceptibly too. Vitaly concluded the snork had definitely a sad expression, but was it _sad enough_ to be _sorrow_? Or _resigned_? Or _distressed_? And why would the snork be suddenly sorrowful? Was it because the mutant had seen itself as the others saw it? Had the mutant became conscious of how it looked? But even so, how could it be affected by its own image, if it hadn't means, like a human, to compare itself with someone else and then jump to conclusions about how it looked? _That_ , if the snork actually cared about how it looked… The mutant surely had other means, others than the visual and probably more effective, to identify the ones of its own species.

The young scientist changed to a sitting position and pulled his knees to his chest:

"Hey." He called softly, and the snork looked away from the mirror to him. "What's wrong?"

 _Wrong_.

Mikhail tilted its head and rested one knee on the floor. How to explain…? The mutant snorted and pointed itself. Vitaly frowned:

"You're wrong? Why?" And much to his surprise the snork pointed him. How could Mikhail be wrong because of him? And first and most important of all… did Mikhail know what was w _rong_? Vitaly already knew the snork _understood_ him… but was it able to really understand him at all? Could the snork understand **words** or the **emotions** carried by the words? Or both?

Mikhail snarled, annoyed, pointing constantly from it to Vitaly. Of course the snork was wrong, how couldn't Vitaly see it? Stupid human… By instinct, Mikhail already knew it and Vitaly were _different_ , were enemies and one had to eliminate the other in order to survive. And Mikhail had been happy living with the aid of its instinct… until Vitaly showed up. And Vitaly, being _different_ from the other humans, had made the snork really curious about him.

However… seeing their reflections, Mikhail realised they were _indeed different_ ; Vitaly was nice and harmless… Mikhail wasn't. By no means could they be a pack, that wouldn't work; Vitaly, harmless and nice, would only delay Mikhail, not harmless and not nice, when it came to face the other humans and escape.

By the way Vitaly was looking at the snork, Mikhail understood the human didn't understand at all its reasoning. The mutant snarled and decided to point the mirror, because if the mirror had made it seen the obvious, so maybe it would have the same effect on Vitaly.

The young scientist looked at their reflection in the mirror, confused, and for a long while he simply stared, intrigued with Mikhail's attitude after seeing its reflection. The young scientist knew animals could tell when they were in the presence of a different species, and he thought it was obvious that the snork _already_ knew they were both… different, yet not entirely different. Vitaly was human, Mikhail was a mutated human. And in that moment the young scientist was starting to believe that Mikhail was much more human than what it could imagine.

With a sigh, the brown-eyed man looked away from the mirror to the snork that still had the same disturbed attitude. Like something was indeed _wrong_. He offered Mikhail a smile:

"I can't understand what's wrong, Misha." He said softly. The snork frowned. «Misha»? Now the scientist was changing its name? Humans changed names like that? Though Mikhail had to admit «Misha» sounded… nicer than «Mikhail». There, Vitaly was being nice again! The snork let out a small snarl. "I don't see anything wrong."

Mikhail narrowed its eyes, incredulous. It was so obvious and that silly human couldn't see it? The snork made a last attempt to explain itself, pointing again their reflection in the mirror. Yet Vitaly just shrugged:

"Yeah, you're a snork. A stylish snork, with a cool hairstyle. And I'm a man and I should think about getting a cool hairstyle too." He stated with a chuckle. For brief seconds, Mikhail thought Vitaly had finally gotten it. "But trust me, we can be friends."

 _Trust._

The snork just snarled, annoyed. Vitaly was doing it again, like when Mikhail had bitten him; he was still insisting, provoking the snork's curiosity to try to go further. Mikhail doubted that, with the character differences, their pack would last.

But _friends_? What was that? It sounded new… nice. There, there was that stupid human being nice again!

And there was that even more stupid snork accepting the whole thing. Again.

Vitaly dragged himself closer to the mutant and stirred its blonde hair:

"But despite you being a snork and me being a man, we actually go along pretty well, don't you think?" Vitaly asked and tried not to think about the bite wound in his arm. Mikhail lowered its head a little, actually enjoying the feeling of Vitaly's fingers on its hair. The young scientist's smile grew wider. "There's more than meets the eye, isn't it?" The snork looked up at him, curiously, and the young scientist was sure, in that precise moment, that he and the snork did understand each other, and with time they would probably understand each other even better, and the snork had a sense of… _himself_. _His_ reaction before the mirror had no other interpretation, and for Vitaly having consciousness of himself and _reacting_ before it, like Mikhail did, was enough proof that the snork had humanity left.

* * *

After lunch they went back to the lab and Vitaly decided that the saliva sample in the petri dish could wait inside the lab refrigerator; Mikhail's mind, that since the beginning had sounded very interesting, now sounded like the only thing that really mattered to understand the snork.

So Vitaly sat on the floor in front of Mikhail and spread pens and paper sheets between them, while keeping his notebook open next to him to take some notes. He unbuckled the collar around Mikhail's neck and left it aside:

"This is a blue pen. Blue pen." The brown-eyed man said and held said pen before the snork's eyes. "And this is a black pen. Black pen. And this is a red pen. Red pen." He took a moment to write on his notebook. "Now Misha, can you give me the black pen?"

Mikhail tilted his head, observing the pens, and after a moment he picked up the black pen. In front of him, Vitaly smiled widely and did something he hadn't done since Mikhail had attacked him; he gave the snork a biscuit. Well, Mikhail wasn't picky with food…

Vitaly then asked for the blue pen, then the red, and the blue again, then the black, and finally the red. _Learns names related to objects._ , Vitaly wrote, _Yet I believe Mikhail's understanding of human language goes beyond that. Able to identify identical objects that differ only in colour._ , and here Vitaly bit his lower lip and decided to add a little note to remind him to lead tests just to be sure the snork didn't have any type of colour-blindness, because he recalled that in all the information he had read about those mutants, there was nothing about how they perceived the world.

And just when the young scientist thought he was going to have a calm, peaceful and productive day with Mikhail… the snork began to growl and turned around to face the door. Vitaly hurried to buckle the collar around his neck and take hold of the chain when someone knocked at the door and came in. The young scientist recognised him immediately; it was the younger soldier from the gym, the one who had looked curiously to the snork while his comrade had been busy ranting about how the snork wasn't supposed to be in the gym.

The soldier closed the door behind him and smiled, enthusiastic:

"I'm sorry to come down here and interrupt your work, doctor… but I got really curious about this mutant." He excused and stood there, visibly eager to get closer but at the same time not really sure of how to act before the growling mutant. Vitaly smiled too and stood up. "Mikhail, isn't it? You named it?"

"No, he was already named Mikhail." Vitaly replied and looked down at the mutant, still growling threateningly. Judging by the tension visible in the mutant, the young scientist decided it would be better if the soldier kept that distance. "He had a dog tag, he was a soldier on duty when the mutation occurred."

"Cool, so you can tell how old it is? Because doctor, when you said it had a good motor coordination… it got me thinking; it didn't originally walk like that, right? It had to learn."

"Exactly, he had to learn!" Vitaly nodded, excitedly; finally someone who seemed to appreciate his work. He decided to step forwards, and much to his dismay Mikhail gave two steps forwards, still growling. "But no, I don't know when the mutation occurred…"

The young soldier began to bounce on his heels; he was around Vitaly's age, had brown eyes and blonde hair in a burr cut. Vitaly immediately sympathized with him, and would have gone shake hands with him if he didn't have to keep Mikhail at a certain distance from the soldier:

"I could ask around the older guys if they know something." The soldier volunteered and looked down to the snork. "I've never seen a snork before, you know? I arrived just some weeks ago. It doesn't seem bad."

"Mikhail doesn't seem bad, yes…" Vitaly repeated and looked discreetly to his injured arm, with the bandage hidden under his sleeves. "But I sincerely hope you don't have a bad encounter with a snork."

"I was told that usually there's always more than one." The soldier crouched, still looking curiously at Mikhail. "You made it that mohawk, doctor?"

"Yeah."

"It looks funny, can I pet it?"

"You better don't." Vitaly chuckled when the soldier looked up at him, disappointed. "Mikhail… he… you can't judge a book by its cover."

"Do you think that, if it gets used to me, it'll let me pet it?" The soldier smiled hopefully. "I'm private Alexandrov, by the way. Alexei Alexandrov."

"I really don't know…" Vitaly sighed and looked down at Mikhail, who was still insisting with growling and looking like he was about to attack. In a way, it disturbed Vitaly that the mutant didn't calm down; that soldier seemed nice, he meant no harm. But on the other hand, the young scientist actually felt special about being the only one allowed to interact with the snork. "Doctor Fedor. Vitaly Fedor."

Alexei stood up, slowly, and waved goodbye to Mikhail. That only made the snork growl louder:

"I gotta go now… Can I show up sometimes?" He asked, looking from the mutant to the scientist. Vitaly nodded. "Cool! See you, doctor! See you, Mikhail!"

The soldier left, but it took a while for the snork to finally relax and stop growling. Vitaly sighed and sat on the floor again:

"Alexei doesn't seem bad, Misha. Why are you constantly growling?" He asked as he unbuckled Mikhail's collar. He made a note to self to change the bandage around the snork's neck before dinner.

Mikhail snorted, watching as Vitaly was doing something with the pens and the paper sheets. The snork growled because the soldier, besides being a human, which was a valid reason for growling and attacking, was a soldier. Soldiers are brute. Soldiers carry weapons. Soldiers kill unless they're killed first. Easy logic, the snork couldn't understand why Vitaly didn't get it, especially when Vitaly himself was a victim of them.

And, since Vitaly insisted on the two of them being a pack, Mikhail had to defend Vitaly from the soldiers, returning the favour Vitaly had been doing since they had meet; the young scientist had defended him from the soldiers.

Vitaly drew a circle, a square, a rectangle and a triangle in some paper sheets and then displayed them in front of Mikhail, taking the mutant out of his musings:

"Okay Misha, this is a circle, this is a square, this is a rectangle and this is a triangle." He explained. "The square, where is the square?"

Mikhail frowned and, after a little hesitation between the square and the rectangle, pointed the square and was a given a smile and a biscuit. Vitaly repeated the exercise a few more times, always rewarding Mikhail, then he turned up the clean surface of the paper sheets and made some basic drawings of facial expressions:

"Now that I'm sure you can really understand feelings and express emotions, I'm going to teach you their names." The brown-eyed man explained while drawing with the black pen. He paused for a moment to look at the snork, frowning thoughtfully. "You looked… sorrowful after seeing yourself in the mirror. I've noticed you started using facial expressions you saw on me, related to things you felt on me… but I never felt sorrowful around you. Not even when you bit me. I wonder if you have capacity to… how to explain, adapt what you already know to something you never experienced before." Vitaly frowned as the snork tilted his head several times. "Am I sounding confusing, Misha? When you saw yourself in the mirror, you made a face… the face you made, it corresponds to a feeling. Have you ever felt like that before?"

The snork thought for a moment, then shook his head in a quite clumsy way. He was more used to nodding and raised his blonde eyebrows when Vitaly chuckled, amused:

"I can really talk with you!" He exclaimed and wrote in his notebook _Recalls and applies things learned in a previous moment in time._ "I wonder if there are more snorks like you."

Mikhail snorted; he had his doubts, his fellow snorks weren't the curious and the adventurous type as Mikhail, they were way more careful. That was why they were outside and Mikhail was in the lab with Vitaly… Yet this thought didn't bother the snork at all, and the mutant simply shook his head again. Interested, the young scientist pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on the top of his knees:

"So you're telling me that, if they had brought a Sergei instead of a Mikhail, Sergei would have probably killed me?" Mikhail just blinked his eyes. "If it was another snork, not you… I'd be dead by now, isn't it?"

All things considered… Mikhail snorted again and nodded enthusiastically; Vitaly would have died long ago had he been working with another snork, and not a curious one as Mikhail. But the mutant also knew that, if someone else, not someone _nice_ and _harmless_ as Vitaly, had been appointed to work with him, he would already be dead, too… or even worse, would be living in the fragile limbo between life and death.

Seemed both of them had been lucky.

Vitaly crossed his legs and finished drawing faces:

"Okay Misha… this is a sad face, this is a happy face, this is a surprised face and that's a scared face." He explained as he pointed the drawings with the pen. "I'm going to do facial expressions and I want you to point the face that resembles my expression the most, ok? Like now, I'm smiling, I'm happy, this face looks like me." And he pointed the happy face.

Mikhail thought the whole thing really interesting; humans didn't only have an endless way to move their faces, but they also had an endless list of names for it! Why were humans so obsessed with naming things? The snork hoped one day Vitaly would teach him the means to voice this question.

* * *

At night, after dinning and leaving the snork in his cell, Vitaly went to his bedroom to sleep. Yet he was sleepless, even though he actually felt tired. The day with Mikhail had been at the same time exciting and calm, and for a moment Vitaly smiled to himself, remembering his childhood years; he had used to feel exactly like that before the new school year started, due to the perspective of making new friends.

However, and Vitaly's smile died, bitterly, making new friends had always been something that Vitaly had failed at miserably. Not that he hadn't try, maybe even a little too hard. The perspective of being _friends_ with a _mutated human_ was certainly ridiculous, but Vitaly smiled again; if some people said their best friend was their cat, so he really didn't see a problem of his best friend being a mutant. A mutant that he had to study… He cast a look at his injured arm and decided to change the bandage. With a sigh, he made his way to the bathroom, still looking at his arm; yeah, he really didn't have any other way of doing his job if Mikhail wasn't cooperative, and he was sure that the whole situation would be way better if both of them were sure they could trust each other, that the other wouldn't hurt them.

The brown-eyed man by no means wanted to believe he was such a hopeless case that only a mutant would have patience for him…

He stopped in front of the sink and opened the little cabinet over it, from where he retrieved a small first-aid kit. He opened it and picked up a new roll of bandages, and started to unwrap the bandage that covered his wounded arm. Then he raised his eyebrows; the wound had finally started to heal, and in the places where only the skin had been damaged there were already a few fragile scabs.

* * *

Mikhail woke up and approached the door of his cell, expecting. At any moment, Vitaly would show up.

But then… the snork caught a light _tension_ in the air. How?, he couldn't explain. All he knew was that there was _danger_ somewhere, so he began to growl and looked around, his whole body building up tension in case he needed to defend himself. He couldn't see the danger, and couldn't even feel it properly. All Mikhail knew was that **there was danger**.

Shortly after the snork felt Vitaly was coming, and that was when the mutant felt utterly confused; the danger was still there… but the danger wasn't Vitaly. So, what was happening? He kept growling, remained tense, and deep down began to worry because Vitaly, finding him like that, would be s _cared_ again. Mikhail didn't want that, he wanted the good feelings.

Vitaly opened the door and heard Mikhail growl. The young scientist frowned, confused, and wondered if there was someone bothering the snork. But as he approached Mikhail's cell, he noticed the mutant was alone. So, why was he acting like that? Vitaly couldn't help but worry, worry that for some reason the mutant had gone back to stage zero, that all the work from the previous weeks was gone, that the frail trust between them had vanished.

Forcing a smile, he kneeled in front of the mutant, looking at him through the metal bars of the cell door. The snork was tense, looking at him with wide blue eyes. Vitaly frowned, concerned:

"Misha? What's wrong?"

Mikhail didn't know, either. All he knew was that there was _danger_.

Yet suddenly it was all gone. The tension in the air, the danger. The snork relaxed, blinking his eyes very quickly, and Vitaly's frown grew bigger. Carefully, the young scientist opened the cell door and approached the snork, but Mikhail did nothing:

"Strange… what happened to you?" Vitaly asked quietly and held the chain. He didn't need to pull it, Mikhail followed him.

The snork snarled lowly; he would like to know what happened, too…

* * *

 **Weee, review?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note:** sorry for the late update. ._. I got a few stuff getting in the way... Anyway, thanks for all of those who added this story to their favs or are following it. :)

* * *

Two days gone by and Mikhail didn't feel tension in the air again, so Vitaly decided not to give importance to the snork's strange behaviour.

Instead, he convinced Mikhail to allow him to run a MRI scan. At first, when he slid the doors open to reveal the machine, Mikhail was highly suspicious and didn't want to approach the machine; the snork couldn't understand why Vitaly had hidden that part of the lab, so maybe it was a dangerous place to be. Yet slowly, he had decided to join Vitaly near the machine, had explored and concluded that the new thing was harmless.

Then the young scientist explained that the MRI scan machine was a place to take naps. Mikhail didn't buy that, but Vitaly exemplified how to lie on the stretcher and Mikhail gave it a try. It wasn't very bad, but it wasn't nice either; lying on his back was painful. The snork grunted and shook his head; he didn't want to take naps in that place. Besides… he was getting tired of resting.

So, much for Vitaly's dismay, Mikhail jumped to the floor again:

"Nonono, Misha! I need you here! I need you to take some naps here! It's important!" Vitaly exclaimed. Mikhail, about to go the other part of the lab, stopped and glanced behind, intrigued. "I need to run scans on you while you sleep, so that I can know if it's all right with your muscles and organs!"

Mikhail rolled his eyes; of course he was fine, if he wasn't he would be limping, or not moving at all, or dead! Silly Vitaly, always complicating the simplest of things!

Vitaly bit his lower lip as the snork stood in the same place, still glancing over his shoulder. He needed to be more persuasive, and concluded he needed help to convince the snork to cooperate. So he left the lab and went to the kitchen, where the cooker grudgingly accepted to help, and Vitaly went back to the lab feeling way more confident:

"Misha!" He called as he got in again. The snork, which in the meantime had hid under the desk, grunted in response. "I can get you a really nice lunch and a really nice dinner if you take some naps and let me run the scans." Mikhail peeked from under the desk and raised an eyebrow when Vitaly kneeled in front of him. "Raw meat, what do you think? Still dripping blood, like you've just hunted it."

* * *

The snork, blindfolded, dressed with a ridiculous paper outfit and with big headphones protecting his ears, couldn't understand how someone was supposed to take a nap in that noisy machine. That made absolute no sense, and simply lying there, unable to move and unable to see, with his ears constantly massacred by the low pitched bangs and occasional screeches from the machine was torture. Besides, he was cold and his back ached from having to support all of his height on the exposed bone, separated from the hard surface of that terrible excuse of a bed by a thin layer of bandages.

The snork snarled and squeezed the buzzer Vitaly had given him. There was a loud beep, and the uncomfortable bed moved forwards. When it stopped, Mikhail rolled over his side and eventually fell to the floor. There was the sound of a door opening, steps and finally the blindfold was removed. Mikhail looked up to Vitaly, annoyedly, and the young scientist sighed patiently:

"Misha, if you're constantly stopping the exam, we'll never finish it… It has been 3 hours and all I have is your head, chest and left arm!"

The snork snarled and pointed his back, aggrieved. Vitaly sighed again and kneeled next to the snork:

"I know it hurts, but I really have to run these scans on you…" He explained. "We'll have lunch in a couple of hours, if you don't stop any other exam we might get your right arm and your abdomen done. Then after lunch…" Vitaly smiled when Mikhail huffed and puffed. "…we'll probably have your legs and feet done in a few hours and I promise I will never bother you again with this kind of thing, ok?" Mikhail narrowed his eyes. "Pretty please, Misha? Think about the raw meat!"

Mikhail considered that a piece of raw meat wasn't worth all of that. Yet he sighed, climbed back to the uncomfortable and moving bed, allowed Vitaly to blindfold him again, to arrange the headphones covering his ears and to slip the buzzer into his hand again.

* * *

Both lunch and dinner were several and really nice pieces of raw meat, fresh and bloody, just like Vitaly had promised. It still wasn't worth the time lost inside the noisy machine and it definitely wouldn't make up for the terrible pain in Mikhail's back… but Vitaly was delighted, talking nonstop on how he was proud of the snork for having been so kind to comply with the MRI scanning, and Mikhail liked that, liked the good feelings irradiating from the scientist.

After leaving the snork in his little cell for the night, Vitaly went to the lab to check the MRI scans in the workstation computer. He spent a couple of hours looking at the images and taking a lot of notes: Mikhail's internal organs were human and the only thing that had been drastically affected by the mutation were the vocal cords; there was indeed an injury in the left flexor tendon where the tendon had ruptured partially and been unable to heal entirely and there were also plenty of muscular lesions that somehow had healed; despite the slender appearance, the snork had incredibly powerful muscles, especially in the legs, and the tendons in the feet were thicker, larger and more elastic than a human's.

Vitaly felt like a little child in a candy shop. He already had a decent lot of information about Mikhail, and seemed the more he had the more interesting the mutant seemed. It was overwhelming, so many things, so many subjects to work and develop! And the young scientist knew that, if he kept looking, he would find more.

The brown-eyed scientist left the lab and trotted upstairs, excitedly, already imagining another highly interesting exam for Mikhail. He made his way to the infirmary, knocked on the door and got in; there was only a medic, sitting on a lonely desk at a corner, and the man, on his late 40ies, looked up at Vitaly:

"Do you need help?" He asked, frowning, because the young scientist was constantly looking around, like he was searching for something among the empty beds:

"Do you have the equipment to make that running test?" The young scientist asked. The medic's frown grew bigger:

"The Gerkin Protocol Test? I do, why?"

"I… uh…" Vitaly smiled nervously, approached the medic and shook hands with him. "Vitaly Fedor, I'm a scientist and I'm working on a snork, I'd like to know if I can use your equipment, since I don't have that kind of material in my lab."

"Ah, I've heard about you…" The medic chuckled, and Vitaly couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when there were no questions about his work with Mikhail. "Sure, I have the equipment in there." The medic pointed a closed door, behind his desk. "Can you operate with it?"

"Not really."

"I'll give you a hand, then."

* * *

In the next morning, the medic nearly had a heart-attack when Vitaly appeared in the infirmary with Mikhail. The older man frowned and hid a little behind his desk:

"I thought it had a muzzle… something like that…" He grumbled, raising his voice above Mikhail's constant growl:

"He has a collar…"

"But you'll remove it during the test, right? I'm not staying in the same room as that monster, Doctor."

Vitaly just sighed and followed the medic into the little room behind his desk. It had a few medical equipment and Vitaly noticed another door, at his left, with the indication it was a surgery room. Following Vitaly, Mikhail was really excited with the perspective of another adventurous day. He only wished his and Vitaly's adventures didn't have to involve other human beings, because that instinctively forced the snork to be wary, and Mikhail didn't want to be wary when on adventures with Vitaly; he wanted to be able to explore peacefully without having to watch his back… and Vitaly's.

The medic, looking from the growling mutant to his younger colleague, quickly explained him how the equipment worked and then hurried to leave the room and close the doors. He stood by the round windows in the doors, though, watching, curiosity written all over his face.

Vitaly kneeled next to Mikhail and unbuckled the collar around his neck:

"Ok Misha, I want you to run on that, at different speeds, until you can't take it anymore." The young scientist explained and pointed a treadmill. "When you're too exhausted to proceed, jump to the floor, or the treadmill will project you backwards." The snork frowned, confused, and wondered why he couldn't run on the ground, like normal creatures did. "I'll need to tape a couple of electrodes on your chest, ok?"

Mikhail followed the young scientist to the «thing» where he was supposed to run on and, quite bemused, allowed Vitaly to undress the upper part of his uniform and unwrap the bandages, rub a cold creamy thing on his chest and then fix something on his chest that connected him to a small machine, near the treadmill, by wires. The things on his chest were cold too, and the snork grunted.

Smiling, Vitaly started the treadmill.

And the snork widened his eyes because the ground was moving backwards! He hurried to start walking, intrigued, looking down at the moving floor:

"Cool, isn't it?" Vitaly asked excitedly and laughed. Mikhail cast him a mighty frown; no, it wasn't cool! It was impractical! Shaking his head, the snork resumed to walk, and when Vitaly considered the mutant was used to the treadmill, he increased the speed. Not bothered at all, Mikhail began to canter softly. Vitaly noted down the speed and, seeing it presented no big difficulty for the snork, increased the speed. The mutant snarled and sped up a bit. Vitaly noted down the current speed and looked at the snork, at how he moved, and for a moment wondered if the exposed spine didn't cause Mikhail pain everytime he moved. He frowned and was tempted to finish the experiment right there, but the snork didn't seem uncomfortable and even looked at him questioningly, as if to ask if the ground couldn't move faster than that.

The experiment ended with Mikhail lying over his side on the floor, panting and drenched in sweat; he had never run like that, not even outside, where usually life could be saved with a sprint to a safe hiding place… and with luck. Mikhail found the results of running over the moving floor very uncomfortable, and swore he would never repeat the stunt. Yet Vitaly was delighted, so the snork thought that, for humans, ending up unable to sustain their own body weight, unable to breathe properly and soaked in sweat was a good thing. Humans were weird…

* * *

All that bother turned out to be not so bad when Mikhail found himself in Vitaly's bedroom, free from the leather collar that the young scientist left on the floor:

"Now, I'm going to give you a nice hot bath." Vitaly said and headed to the bathroom. Mikhail thought that «bath» was some sort of food, and he eagerly followed the brown-eyed man into the bathroom.

Too bad, the bath was not edible.

Vitaly found that, despite Mikhail's good will to cooperate in practically everything, the bath was definitely not something that pleased the snork. He had to lock the bathroom door to prevent Mikhail from running away, then had a hell of a time to undress the mutant. He discovered that the snork didn't need much time to recover from physical activity, and that despite being bigger and heavier than the mutant, it meant nothing; the little wriggly creature easily got away, and it was by mere chance that Vitaly managed to pin him down between his knees and wash the unpleased mutant with a wet towel, so that the open wound on the snork's back wouldn't hurt because of the spray of water from the shower. Putting Mikhail into underwear again and bandaging his back was another battle, but Vitaly eventually won and hurried to unlock and open the door before the stressed mutant ran into it and eventually made a hole in the door.

The snork fled outside and began to run in circles, growling. Vitaly, with his face and neck red, wiped the sweat on his forehead to the back of his hand:

"Now I need a bath too…!" He mumbled. "Behave, yes Misha?"

The snork kept running in circles, like he hadn't done anything exhaustive before. With a sigh, Vitaly closed the bathroom door again.

Mikhail came to a halt and looked at the closed door; that was a place he hoped not to visit again! Then the snork looked around, curiously; he had already been in Vitaly's room, but hadn't had the time to explore it decently because the young scientist had taken him to that horrid place – the bathroom -, first to make him «stylish» and now to give him a bath. Mikhail hoped he would have enough time to explore everything, unlike his previous visit.

He decided to start with what he presumed to be a human nest; it had Vitaly's sent all over it, so it couldn't be a dangerous place. With a grunt, the mutant leaped from the floor to the bed, and raised his blonde eyebrows as he landed on a soft surface, so different from everything he was used to; it wasn't hard, like the floor of underground facilities or outside in the Zone, and it wasn't clammy like the ground in the swamps. Mikhail looked down, marveled, poking the surface where he landed; it was soft and warm and seemed comfortable. Besides, the human nest was elevated, which meant safety and better vision of everything that surrounded it.

* * *

Vitaly left the bathroom some minutes later, with a towel wrapped around his waist:

"Ok Misha, our uniforms are in the washer, once they're washed I'll put them in the dryer and-" He came to a halt, first surprised, then grinned like a fool.

Mikhail was on the bed, sleeping deeply, curled in a ball. Vitaly thought about an oversized cat and stepped forwards, arms crossed and a stupid smile still on his face; he knew Mikhail took some naps under his desk and that he slept, had to sleep, in his cell… but Vitaly had never seen the snork sleep, and he presumed that usually, even under the desk, Mikhail didn't sleep deeply and was highly aware of his surroundings

Slowly, the brown-eyed man sat at the edge of the bed, observing the snork. The mutant was still sleeping deeply, eyes closed, noisy breathing. Like that, Mikhail did look like a human, and Vitaly wondered if the snork had dreams. But then the young scientist sneezed.

Mikhail's pale blue eyes flew open and darted precisely to the source of the noise, the mutant's body already tense and ready to jump to a fighting position. But it was just Vitaly, and the snork let out an annoyed snarl and relaxed again. Vitaly giggled:

"Did I scare you, Misha?" He asked. The snork merely grunted and closed his eyes again, as if dismissing the man's company.

Yet Vitaly didn't leave. He dressed a pair of boxers and climbed to the bed, just to sit cross-legged in front of the snork. Mikhail opened one eye and looked at him:

"Do you dream, Misha?" The young scientist asked, and the mutant opened his other eye. "Dreams are like… successions of images, ideas, emotions and sensations. But it's involuntary and it can happen when you're lightly asleep or completely asleep."

Mikhail frowned and, with a sigh, changed to his usual crouching position, placing a knee on the mattress. He looked at Vitaly curiously; yes, what the man had just said happened to him. Sometimes the mutant replayed parts of his day in his mind, but not because he wanted to. Other times he heard a voice, though he couldn't tell what the voice was saying, and screams, and what appeared to be the sounds of an emission.

The screams scared Mikhail, because it was just that; screams. The snork knew that, to be a scream, there had to be an injured human. But there wasn't an injured human, just the screams and the darkness on the mutant's unconscious mind.

If Vitaly was asking that, so that meant the man dreamed too, and maybe he knew what were those screams.

The snork nodded and Vitaly raised his eyebrows; he honestly didn't expect the snork to be able to dream, or at least to tell him he could dream. The brown-eyed man supported his elbows on his thighs and rested his chin on the palms of his hands:

"What are your dreams about?" The young scientist asked and the snork snarled because… that was complicated. He couldn't just tell. The annoyed expression on Mikhail's face made Vitaly smile sadly, and the snork concluded he didn't like that smile. "Sorry, sometimes I forget… sometimes I forget you can't _just_ talk." The man sighed. "I wonder what kind of guy you were, before the mutation… I like to think you were a nice fellow, that kind of popular guy who talks to everybody, and you had a hell of a luck to… go through whatever you went through."

Mikhail frowned and tilted his head; he didn't like the way Vitaly's voice sounded. Though the snork couldn't quite qualify it, he knew it had to be related to sadness. The snork made a guttural sound, something that resembled a growl but wasn't threatening, and Vitaly sighed again:

"My father had a pulmonary disease, so we had to move from the city to the countryside. I was… 2, maybe 3? I grew up in a _stanitsa_." The young man told. Mikhail tilted his head to the other side. "It wasn't bad, you know? But… when I went to school… it was complicated… My mother worked in a nearby small city, and that's where I attended to school, too. I had to stay there for the whole day, because I left the house with my mother at dawn and then returned with her at night, when she was done with work. It was a bit tiring…" Vitaly looked down and his hands came to rest on his lap for brief moments, before he started playing with his dog tags. "The other kids lived near the school and they all used to leave after the lessons… and I had to wait there. That made me the uncool kid from the countryside, and nobody wanted to be friends with me, and even those who talked to me during the pause or the lessons spent more time with the other kids than with me." Vitaly smiled sadly and Mikhail wondered if he could smack that smile away, because he really didn't like it. "I went to college in Kiev. I was really excited because finally!, I'd live near the place I study and could make friends. But city life isn't for me, Misha… all that noise, all those people… it really wasn't my thing, and I didn't have the guts to make any friends. Just acquaintances…"

Mikhail just stared, and understood that maybe it wasn't new for Vitaly to be victimized by other humans. Maybe the young man was already so used to it that he didn't even notice.

* * *

Much for the snork's liking, after lunch they spent the day in Vitaly's lair. Mikhail definitely liked that place, in particular the nest especially designed for sleeping. Not that he needed, because life in the Zone forced him to develop a fast recovery, but it felt good, just staying there in that comfortable nest, in companionable silence with Vitaly.

So, after dinner, Mikhail obviously didn't want to go to his dark cell:

"Misha, please…" Vitaly begged in the middle of the corridor, feeling powerless before the obstinate snork, since he couldn't pull the chain attached to the collar around the mutant's neck. "I'll get in serious troubles if someone knows where you spent the day!"

Mikhail wanted to protest… but he couldn't… Vitaly was right. The snork remembered the general saying he was only allowed to go from his cell to Vitaly's lab and to the canteen… and even though he liked the human nest, he didn't want the other humans to act predatory towards Vitaly, that could be dangerous for both of them.

The snork growled lowly, but allowed Vitaly to lead him to the cell. With an environment that was much more familiar to the mutant; cold and humid and dark and with hard ground to sleep on… but that didn't mean the snork liked it. With a resigned grunt, the mutant watched behind the metal bars as the human climbed the stairs and closed the door behind him.

Alone. Mikhail decided he didn't want to sleep. He didn't need to, now that he had spent an entire day taking naps in a place he knew he wouldn't be attacked, and outside that extra energy would allow him to stay awaken, restless, for a couple of days. But he wasn't outside, which meant he didn't need to waste energy like that. He would rather store it, just in case he needed it…

So, the snork lied over his side, eyes still fixed on the door Vitaly used to leave. He sighed; definitely the smooth duvet felt better against his face than the cold stone floor, and the soft surface that adapted to his body was way better to his spine than the hard ground.

Mikhail concluded he wouldn't be able to rest, so he stood up again and began to walk back and forth, waiting for Vitaly to return.

* * *

Vitaly was writing a report with the results of Mikhail's exam from the previous day when the mutant, piling Lego pieces under the desk, began to growl and came out of his lair. The brown-eyed man sighed and stood up, grabbed the abandoned collar over his desk and went to kneel next to the mutant:

"I wonder what happens if you don't have this around your neck…" Vitaly asked himself while buckling the collar around Mikhail's neck and taking hold of the chain. The snork grunted in between growls; the electric shock would still make him feel dizzy… but now, that Mikhail had a healthy weight and was properly rested, that wouldn't be enough to knock him down. Yet not having those prongs threatening to hurt his neck would be great…

Someone knocked at the door and Alexei came in, smiling widely, undisturbed by Mikhail's loud growls:

"Doctor, how're you doing?" He greeted and stopped a bit too close to the snork, who seriously considered sacrificing the skin of his neck just to attack the soldier. Vitaly smiled too and stood up:

"Good, and you? Look, if you could step back a bit…" Alexei nodded and did as he was told, much for Mikhail's annoyance. "So, what brings you here?"

"I asked the older guys about snorks." The soldier said and began to bounce, like a proud child for doing the whole homework. "And there's this guy who said troops were last sent to the interior of the Zone some months before the second disaster, and that was in the beginning of 2006. Since then, the Army has been at bay. The same guy told me snorks were first seen in 2007." Alexei told excitedly. "Mikhail's mutation had to occur in that time span, because nothing like that has happened since, and emissions kill, they don't mutate people!"

Vitaly bit his lower lip and looked down at the growling mutant, thinking:

"Still… I need to know his age… I can't do it through the blood samples, his 'T' cells are intact, probably because his immune system increased in strength due to the mutation."

"If we suppose Mikhail was one of the conscripts sent to the Zone in 2006, he'd have to be at least 18." Alexei replied, bouncing faster and smiling wider. "Which means he's 24, now!"

"Ah, but he could be already in the Zone, which means he's older than that." Vitaly scrutinized Mikhail's face… but by no means he could put age on it. Especially now that the snork had a mohawk…

Alexei's smile died and the bouncing stopped:

"Sorry Doc, I thought I could help…" He mumbled. Vitaly looked up at him again. Alexei seemed a genuinely good man, and Vitaly offered him a sincere smile:

"But you did. If the mutation occurred after the second disaster, so it means it takes a specific happening to create mutants that can't breed." Vitaly frowned, then. "It also means snorks are an endangered species, then… If a third disaster doesn't mutate more humans into snorks, so eventually one day they'll come to an end!"

"Oh, but you could clone Mikhail, right?" Alexei widened his eyes, like the perspective of a Zone free of snorks was something bad. "I mean, if they cloned a sheep…"

"Cloning is an interesting idea… though I'm not sure if an unnatural creature can be cloned." Vitaly nodded, because the idea was indeed appealing. He smiled again. "You want to help me again?"

Alexei nodded, beaming joy, and Vitaly pointed his desk:

"Misha's old uniform is in the upper right drawer. There's an insignia in his dog tag that I can't see very well, maybe you can understand what is it."

The young soldier made his way to the desk, undisturbed by Mikhail's growls, that grew louder, and by the mutant's attempt to follow him. Alexei opened the drawer and pulled out the ragged uniform inside the plastic bag, and frowned:

"By the _telnyashka_ , I'd say Mikhail was a paratrooper." The young soldier then removed the dog tags from inside the bag and observed the one with the insignia. After squinting his eyes for a while he nodded, then carefully looked for something on the tattered uniform. He nodded again and looked to Vitaly. "Paratrooper, definitely."

Vitaly looked down to the snork at the end of the tense chain in his hands, and couldn't help but feel a renewed mixture of respect and curiosity towards the mutant. He remembered the results of the MRI scans; maybe Mikhail's muscular inferior limbs were due to his past life as paratrooper, and maybe that had made it easier for the mutant to learn how to walk on his fours, since his legs and articulations were strong enough to sustain his body weight in crouching positions for long periods of time. He looked up to Alexei again:

"Did he have any important rank?"

"No, just a private. Like me." Alexei smiled. "Paratroopers in the center of the Zones makes sense… sometimes, we, the Infantry, are still aided by airborne troops." The young soldier returned the uniform and the dog tags to the drawer. "If you want, I can ask that guy if he knows anything about paratroopers in the Zone before the second disaster."

"That would be nice, the general doesn't let me access the files I need…" Vitaly grimaced. "It would make my job a lot easier, you know?"

"But… why does the general wants you to study Mikhail?" Alexei came to stand in front of Vitaly and Mikhail again, and looked curiously at the mutant. Vitaly shrugged:

"He wants to know if snorks can be human again."

"And could they?" The soldier asked excitedly:

"Sometimes I wonder if Mikhail ever stopped being one…"

* * *

The cooker frowned when Vitaly, absently looking to Mikhail waiting for him at the table, spilled the water from the snork's bowl. The young scientist looked away from the mutant and cursed softly:

"I'm very sorry…" He mumbled and the cooker simply rolled his eyes:

"Any problem, Doctor?"

"I was wondering about Misha's age…"

The cooker raised an eyebrow and looked at the snork, patiently waiting for Vitaly to place the tray with his lunch in front of him. Then the man chuckled and shook his head:

"I say it can't be older than you! But what does it matter?"

"It matters, because knowing his age would probably make easier to understand the whole mutation process. And understanding it right might be the key to revert it!"

"I don't think your snork will ever be a man again." The cooker opined, then shrugged and turned his back to Vitaly to get a cloth to clean the spilled water. "But I'm just a humble cooker."

"A humble soldier told me Misha had been paratrooper and his mutation occurred from 2006 to 2007, that's something my noble scientist colleagues don't mention in their works…" Vitaly replied when the cooker came back with the cloth. The man hummed and wiped the spilled water:

"Whatever your snork was… I have my doubts it will go back to it. And imagine, Doctor, Mikhail was an asshole! You should leave things like this; the deeper we dig, the harder is to get out of the hole."

Vitaly sighed, disappointed, and carried the two trays with food to the table. Mikhail dove his head into the bowl, happily, and began to eat, apparently uninterested on how the young scientist felt. Vitaly began to play with the food, poking it with the fork while looking at the snork.

Truth to be told, he didn't necessarily need to know how the mutation occurred, he didn't need to know who Mikhail had been, he didn't need to fully understand the mutant to try to reverse the mutation. It was quite simple, in fact, with all the things he knew from the studies of his colleagues outside and from the few scientific exams he had led. He knew that Mikhail's vocal chords were damaged beyond repair, so the snork would never the able to talk again, and he supposed the snork's exposed spine would be unable to sustain him upright, so the snork would never walk like a human again. So, all intelligent and practical lines of work were reduced to get the snork used to have humans around and to teach him humans were not to be attacked, but cooperated with.

But Vitaly wanted to know how the mutation occurred, wanted to know who Mikhail had been, wanted to fully understand the mutant. Because, if there was anything to reverse, then it would be fully psychological, and knowing the mutant had personality, and a sense of himself, and dreams… so maybe his human mind could be fetched from the little dark corner it had been remitted to. Reverting the mutation – properly – would only work if Mikhail went through another process of humanization, and expect the snork to either remember his old self or learn how to be a human again.

Vitaly stopped poking the food when he realised Mikhail's pale blue eyes were fixed on him. Mikhail's expressions were difficult to read, but Vitaly had learned that the slightly tilted head, the slightly raised eyebrows and the clenched jaws meant concern. He noticed Mikhail's bowl was half-empty, and the snork had probably lost interested in his food because the human sitting in front of him wasn't normal. Vitaly smiled sadly and started to poke the food again:

"You're simple and complex at the same time, Misha…" He said. "I could have simply forced you to respect my presence, but if I had, I guess that wouldn't have poked your curiosity… right?"

Mikhail frowned and wondered if it was the hunger making Vitaly sound so nonsense; Vitaly would be dead, long ago, had he tried to use strength with the mutant instead of captivating his curiosity. The snork grunted and went back to eat, expecting that the brown-eyed man would follow his example.

Back to the lab, the snork crawled under the desk for a little nap and Vitaly sat on the chair, absently scratching his head, and concluded he needed to know what exactly the general meant with wanting to see if the snork could be _human_ again.

 _Was Mikhail meant to think by himself?_

 _Was Mikhail meant to follow orders?_

* * *

 ** _Wee, reviews?_**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** ok, this took a while... Anyway, thanks for much for the support! :D

* * *

"I must confess, Doctor, that I am impressed with your work," the general said as he handed the report back to Vitaly. The young scientist smiled, proud, and decided that, since the man sitting at the desk in front of him was so pleased with the results from the exams, that was his cue to ask exactly what was the general's definition of human being:

"Sir, can I ask you something?" The general nodded, slowly. "When you said you wanted to know if Mikhail could be human again… is he supposed to think by himself or to follow orders? Because, with the results I have obtained-"

The general burst out laughing and almost tipped over his chair, and his sudden outburst made Vitaly jump. The young scientist couldn't understand what was so hilarious about the whole situation, it was a perfectly valid and reasonable question!

But as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and the general simply looked Vitaly in the eye:

"It might be a little too early for that, Doctor. It's not relevant for your current work," the man answered. "Dismissed."

Vitaly sighed, disappointed, and turned his back to leave. Yet the general called him before he closed the door and the young scientist looked to the man on the desk, drumming his fingers on the polished wooden surface:

"The mutant gets along with you, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You can leave, now."

* * *

Vitaly let go of the chain coming from Mikhail's collar to prepare the trays with food:

"Go to sit, Misha," he said absently, watching as the cooker filled Mikhail's bowl with food. The snork grunted and began to walk to the usual table, with the heavy chain dragging on the floor behind him.

But then he noticed there was an opening between the counter and the wall, an opening big enough for a man. If a man could fit, then a snork could too! Mikhail raised an eyebrow, curious, and changed his course to go inspect that.

The opening leaded to a small space behind the counter, where the cooker served the dishes. Vitaly and the cooker were talking, and hadn't noticed the adventurous mutant yet. Mikhail grunted and proceeded his way, sniffing the air, and would have made his way unnoticed to the kitchen if the chain hadn't denounced him.

Upon hearing the sound of heavy metal dragging on the floor the cooker glanced behind, right on time to see the snork sneaking into the kitchen. The man screamed in panic and tried to become one with the counter:

"Doctor, your snork's on the loose!" he exclaimed, desperate, and joined his hands in pray. Vitaly experienced a moment of sheer horror and looked at the mutant behind the counter, and for moments expected Mikhail to growl and attack the poor cooker. Yet Mikhail gave the man's fuss little attention and disappeared into the kitchen. Vitaly laughed nervously and hurried to trot after the mutant:

"Don't worry. Misha's just curious about the kitchen!"

Indeed, the kitchen was a place Mikhail liked; it had a wide variety of scents and objects, and most important of all… it had food! So, food didn't come from Vitaly's pockets or the cooker's dishes… but from this place, where everything was stored within easy access. Yet before Mikhail could collect the profit of his adventure a pair of legs came to stand between him and the nearer full-length cabinet with canned food. The snork sighed and looked up, to meet Vitaly's face:

"I told to sit at the table, you scared our friend cooker," the brown-eyed man scolded patiently. "Come on Misha, table."

Mikhail rolled his eyes, Vitaly was no fun… Still the snork turned around and made his way to the table.

And that made Vitaly wonder what would happen if Mikhail walked around without the collar.

* * *

"I mean, you didn't attack the cooker!" Vitaly commented later, excitedly, lying on his stomach and talking to the snork trying to take a nap under his desk. Mikhail regretted deeply not having attacked the man, because apparently that would have given him a bit of peace. Now he had to put up with Vitaly's enthusiastic hypothesis on how he was apt to walk around without the collar and not attack everybody.

That thought amused the snork, and Vitaly's innocence was both worrying and tempting; worrying because the brown-eyed man couldn't believe everything his eyes told him, because eyes alone aren't very skilled to gather information and they are good deceivers, and tempting because there was a part of Mikhail that really wanted to walk around without the collar, attack and kill whoever crossed paths with him and run, and hopefully Vitaly would come with him instead of staying with the other humans, since the other humans did no good to him.

Mikhail hadn't attacked the cooker because he knew the man wasn't an immediate threat, and Vitaly had been there and surely he would have watched Mikhail's back if anything gone wrong. That was how a pack worked, and they were a pack.

Then the snork began to growl and crawled from his hiding place. Vitaly sighed and wished Mikhail would stop doing that. Yet that was the perfect opportunity to make an experiment, and instead of grabbing the collar and put it around the snork's neck, he simply kneeled and placed a hand on the mutant's shoulder, casting a quick glance to the place where the scars from Mikhail's bite hid under the sleeves. Mikhail was now way stronger than him, not to mention how tricky he was, but still the mutant stopped, apparently surprised by the awkward sensation on his body; instead of leather with metal prongs restraining his neck, a friendly hand came to rest on his shoulder.

The snork's pale and opaque blue eyes fixed Vitaly's, confused, though the mutant kept growling:

"I trust you, ok Misha? Just… don't do anything stupid, or we'll both be in troubles," Vitaly said.

Someone knocked at the door and the young scientist looked from the snork to the door:

"Yes?"

"It's just me," The door opened and Alexei came in, smiling apologetically and closing the door behind him. He looked tired, his face was bruised and he had an arm in a sling.

Mikhail's first reaction was moving forwards, ignore the friendly and familiar weight on his shoulder, leap at the soldier and destroy him. It would be easy and the scent of blood coming from him was extremely alluring. He could already taste the blood dripping from his mouth and feel the satisfaction of killing and the power from the adrenaline rushing in his veins.

Yet the fingers on his shoulder dug a bit deeper into his skin, as to remind him there was a real world in which he was in, a real world where there was this man Mikhail… tolerated… and said man was right there, kneeling next to him, with high hopes that the mutant would behave. Trusting. Vitaly had said that once, that he trusted Mikhail. The snork hadn't been sure about what the man had meant, but now he realised Vitaly's trust was very different from the trust among snorks in a pack; it wasn't solely watching each other's back, it went beyond that, it was… it was…

The snork couldn't tell what it was, but he couldn't bring himself to destroy whatever Vitaly was trying to build.

With an angry snarl, the mutant turned around and hid under the desk again, growling, shaking his head because it was unbelievable, he hadn't attacked a human because of another human who wasn't even using a weapon.

Alexei watched the mutant curiously:

"Is he alright, Doctor?"

"Hm… just… just don't get any closer," Vitaly mumbled and stood up, walking away from the desk to meet the young soldier at the door. Hopefully Mikhail would stay under the desk, growling, and not pull up any crazy snork stunt. Standing in front of Alexei, Vitaly frowned a bit and scratched his head. "What happened to you?"

"I saw a snork!" the young soldier chirped happily. "Yesterday, when I went out in patrol with two comrades! He was walking on the road some meters ahead of our group and one of my comrades wanted to kill him," Alexei's enthusiasm dropped considerably. "I told him not to kill the snork and said snorks might disappear completely if whatever happened to Mikhail doesn't happen again. They didn't care…" The young soldier looked to his boots, embarrassed. "The snork attacked us while we were arguing… well, attacked me, one of my comrades shot him. I wanted to take off his mask and see what he looked like, but they didn't let me…"

Vitaly frowned lightly and crossed his arms:

"Why did you want to know how he looked like?"

"Well, if snorks were humans once, so they're all different from each other, right? Or did the mutation mess up their looks? Mikhail seems pretty decent for a mutated human, I just wanted to know if the snork that attacked me was blonde with blue eyes too or brunette with green eyes or… well, you get it, Doctor…"

"I presume they're all different, at least when it comes to facial features," Vitaly nodded, thoughtful, and Alexei leaned back against the door and crossed his feet. "Misha told me I'd be dead by now were I working with another snork instead of him. So if they differ in character, they must differ physically too. Even if just a bit; the mutation might have turned them all into sleek, jumpy creatures, but probably their eye and hair colour remains the same."

"He told you, how?" Alexei widened his eyes in awe, and the young scientist just shrugged, allowing a little proud smile to spread on his face:

"Misha understands human language. In fact, he understands humans too well. All I had to do was teach him to nod or shake his head according to «yes» or «no»."

Under the desk, the snork asked himself when would the soldier leave. Growling, with jaws clenched and hands curled into fists, Mikhail was more and more tempted to simply attack. Vitaly was pushing it too far, and no matter how much the snork didn't want to cause him trouble… this was taking too long. He was being too rational and, therefore, losing too much time. Outside, this internal debate would have costed him his life.

Finally, the soldier's presence and the scent of his blood were gone, and, slowly, Mikhail's growls faded and the mutant crawled from under the desk, frowning. Vitaly was still standing near the door, looking at him, then smiled and went to kneel in front of the mutant:

"Thank you," he said. And Mikhail groaned, almost painfully, because he hadn't quite yet understood what was Vitaly's version of trusting and was already feeling another new and absolutely strange thing. And that new and strange thing felt good too, almost as good as Vitaly's contagious joy.

Gratitude.

Mikhail sighed tiredly and lowered his head when Vitaly began to stir his hair:

"You're starting to get used to people, aren't you?" the young scientist asked softly, only to get a snarl that sounded way too scornful. That made him frown a little and nearly stop stirring Mikhail's hair; the snork was starting to reveal himself as an expressive creature… but with his face. Snorks had different vocalizations, yet none sounded human, and how could Mikhail apply something he hadn't learned, because Vitaly had never sounded scornful around the snork.

Maybe the young scientist was just imagining things…?

* * *

Mikhail's eyes flew open and he automatically jumped to his usual crouching position. He was alone in his cell… but there was that tension in the air again, the danger that the snork couldn't locate but knew was there. Mikhail began to growl, looking around, but nothing moved in the dimness to attack him.

And, after some minutes, it was all gone. The mutant felt momently stunned, until he sighed and lied on his side again. Mikhail intended to sleep a little, just to pass the time while Vitaly didn't come back, and closed his pale blue eyes.

However, it didn't take long for the snork to open them again and go back to his crouching positon.

Someone was coming.

Someone who wasn't Vitaly.

He began to growl.

The door to the third floor was opened and a small group of men made their way down the stairs. Mikhail's growls grew louder and the snork approached the door of his cell. There were three soldiers that guided two stalkers to the ring in the middle of the room while a forth soldier – the general – calmly made his way to Mikhail's cell, with his hands behind his back.

Suddenly Mikhail wasn't very sure about discovering what would happen next, and retreated to the far end of his cell, always growling. The general stopped in front of the bars door and took a bunch of keys from a pocket:

"Doctor Fedor says you're not a wild beast at all. I want to see that," He opened the door and immediately noticed the collar on the ground. He rolled his eyes, bored, and allowed Mikhail to leap at him.

The snork wasn't expecting his target to suddenly dodge and the little surprise element confused him; usually his preys would stay in the same spot, and would either try to stab him or shoot him. The time Mikhail took to assimilate that he had missed made him perform a bad roll and the mutant took a little longer to recover than the usual. And that were just the seconds the general needed to stride towards the snork and tase him.

Mikhail widened his eyes and let out a suffocated growl as his body went numb. Whatever had hit him, was stronger than the sensors in his collar. He felt a hand grab one of his arms and was then dragged into the ring.

Where was Vitaly? Why wasn't he there, protecting him? That was not how a pack was supposed to work!

The two stalkers immediately stepped back and the general chuckled:

"Yes, it's a bit bulkier than when you brought it in. I wonder if it remembers you..." the general mused and let go of Mikhail's arm. The snork still didn't move, so the general decided a kick on the ribs would do the trick. The mutant snarled angrily when the booted foot collided with his ribs, causing an explosion of pain stronger than the numbness.

Slowly, Mikhail stood on his fours, growling and looking around. The soldiers were already out of the ring, leaving him and the two stalkers alone. Before joining his men, the general threw a knife to one of the stalkers, who caught it and held to it like his life depended on it. And… maybe it did:

"Have a good night, gentlemen," the general said, closing the ring door and smiling cynically. Then he looked at the mutant and tilted his head. "And you… you're just a monster, a tiny annoying monster…. I wonder how Doctor Fedor is going to deal with you in the morning."

With that, the soldiers and the general left, but Mikhail's attention was then solely on the two stalkers inside the ring with him.

Vitaly wasn't there, and though the thought hurt Mikhail pushed it aside. He had to focus. He had to survive. The numbness was leaving and all that remained was the pain in his ribs. That alone was enough to make him angry. The stalkers smelled to blood and to human, to enemy and prey. It was either them or Mikhail, and the snork forgot everything as he charged against the stalkers.

* * *

Vitaly made his way to the door that leaded to the third floor. He was happy; he would give Mikhail a paper sheet and pens and discover if the mutant could «draw». The snork would surely enjoy that new experience.

The young scientist opened the door and immediately noticed a strange smell. He frowned and looked around… and there were two bloody messes lying in the ring:

"Oh no, oh no…" Vitaly felt an unpleasant shiver and hurried to go downstairs, nearly stumbling on missing steps. He looked at Mikhail's cell; the door was open, the cell was empty, the collar was on the ground just like he had left it. "Nonononono…"

He hesitated, but pulled the ring door open and hesitated again.

There was blood all over the ground and, right in front of his boots, an abandoned knife. The blade was bloodstained. Vitaly's heart opted for an arrhythmic beat and the young scientist felt his knees slowly lose their strength. Taking a deep, shaky breath, he forced himself to look at the bloody messes.

Corpses, half-eaten, and Vitaly couldn't bring himself to stare longer and covered his mouth with a hand, feeling he sudden urge to puke. Looking around in the ring, he finally found Mikhail, crouching, in the farthest corner.

Vitaly gaped, shocked, terrified. Whatever had happened… would definitely have an impact on Mikhail. What if the latest months' work had been lost, all in a night? Vitaly's legs couldn't support his weight anymore and he fell on his knees:

"Misha?" he called weakly.

Mikhail heard it anyway, but did nothing. He had been observing Vitaly since the young scientist had opened the door and had been quiet… only because he was wounded. Wounded and exhausted, so he was an easy prey. But now the human had seen him, and Mikhail had no other option but attack.

Slowly, the snork limped to Vitaly and began to growl.

And Vitaly felt colour drain from his face and his first instinct was standing up and run, run for dear life because Mikhail would definitely kill him. Whatever had happened… it had all gone back to stage zero, and Vitaly wasn't that innocent anymore and knew he had no chance.

Yet all he did was staying there, shaking and sweating, his wide eyes staring attentively to the approaching mutant. Mikhail was wounded and limped severely, his face was covered with blood, the blonde hair was pasty and the uniform was torn and flayed. So, that was how snorks looked like outside. That was Mikhail's normal appearance, not the clean face and hairstyle and brand new uniform and shiny boots:

"M-Misha?" Vitaly called again. Better, whispered. But, growling like that, Mikhail couldn't have possibly heard it.

Finally, the mutant was standing right there, in front of Vitaly. Mikhail snarled with wide eyes; the human wasn't attacking, in fact he was terrified, and that was just excellent. An easy kill and then Mikhail would be safe.

He raised a hand and intended to use his fingers as claws and hit Vitaly across the face.

However…

That scent… that human… he seemed familiar. The snork hesitated:

"Misha…?" Vitaly whispered again with trembling voice.

The snork blinked his eyes, slowly, and his arm fell harmlessly. The mutant looked at the young scientist, dumbfounded, then shook his head and snarled.

And frowned.

Vitaly.

He was late, Mikhail had taken care of the stalkers. The snork looked around, suddenly overly stressed. Memories flooded his previously blank mind, memories of Vitaly, of everything he had learned with Vitaly. With memories came feelings, feelings that weren't there a second ago, and it was all so brutal and quick and overwhelming that the snork made a sound, shaking his head violently, stumbled and fell on his side.

Vitaly should have been there, watching his back. The mutant trusted him to do so. Yet Vitaly hadn't been there… Why? Why hadn't Vitaly been there? What had he done wrong to be abandoned?

There was silence filled with the sound of Mikhail's and Vitaly's breathing. Slowly, the young scientist reached out for the mutant and touched his head softly. Mikhail just looked at him, confusion and pain written all over his face, and Vitaly understood he had to take the snork out of that place immediately:

"You screamed… Misha, you screamed," Vitaly mumbled and stood up on shaky legs. Well, shaky legs or not, they would have to put up with his weight and Mikhail's. Carefully, he seized the snork and turned around to leave. Mikhail didn't feel heavy then and Vitaly took the adrenaline-filled opportunity to run.

* * *

He lied the mutant on the bathroom floor and hurried to fetch the first-aid kit from the cabinet. Vitaly knew he should take Mikhail upstairs, to the medic, but he also knew that right now the snork needed peace and quiet more than proper medical care:

"Please, don't have anything broken… pleasepleaseplease…" Vitaly mumbled as he undressed the mutant and started to try to feel any possible fracture. Mikhail didn't oppose, and even though he grunted or snarled in pain sometimes he remained still.

He didn't understand. Apparently Vitaly hadn't abandoned him, but why had he let things come this far? If Vitaly had watched his back, none of this would have happened, Mikhail was sure of it. The other humans were nasty, but they didn't attack him when Vitaly was around.

Maybe it wasn't only the human way of trusting that was different from the snork's. Maybe the way their packs worked was different too; seemed in human packs help was only delivered in the end. That explained why humans died so easily, they didn't function correctly… Mikhail winced when Vitaly began to stitch a stab wound in his arm, but still didn't move.

It hurt. Physically, it did hurt. And yet he had survived worse things, had had more severe injuries. There wasn't anything broken, he could feel it, and it had happened in previous times that he actually fractured or cracked a bone or two. Still Mikhail had made it through it all, in pain but alive. So, it was quite disconcerting that the source of bigger pain wasn't a wound, not even the gash Vitaly was stitching or the stitching itself… it was something else, inside, and Mikhail had no idea of how to deal with it… or how to tell Vitaly about it.

Vitaly's hands were shaking during the entire process of washing and patching up the snork:

"I'm going to find out who did this…" the young scientist promised while draping the snork in a towel. Then he seized the mutant, but unlike what happened in the third floor, this time he felt how heavy Mikhail was. Still, he managed to take the mutant from the bathroom and lie him down on the bed. By now Vitaly knew better than bandaging Mikhail's wounds, so he had simply covered the stitched gash with gauze and would let the snork do the rest when he felt like it.

Still shaking, the brown-eyed man undressed the smock and looked at it briefly; it was covered in blood. He felt a new, unpleasant shiver, and hurried to shove the smock into the washer. Then he sat on the bed, next to Mikhail, and looked at the mutant.

Too quiet, staring at him with tired eyes. Vitaly bit his lower lip and shook his head:

"I'm sorry, Misha…" He sighed, bit his lip again, and started to fidget with his fingers. Why was he sorry? That hadn't been his fault! He hadn't attacked Mikhail, that hadn't been one of his experiments. However, he felt like it was his fault. He should have known that something like that was bound to happen, with everybody disliking the snork and despising his work with the mutant, especially his methods. What if Mikhail blamed him for the attack? What if the mutant's trust on him was shaken? All of a sudden, the perspective of working with Mikhail lost all importance, and the only thing that really mattered was the friendship that had started between him and the mutant. That, he didn't want to lose.

The violent turmoil of emotions coming from Vitaly made the snork frown, confused, and grunt. Vitaly looked at him and offered him a weak smile:

"I'm sorry Misha, I really am," he repeated. Mikhail's frown grew bigger. "I… I promise I won't let it happen again, ok? I won't let you down again."

The mutant simply stared at Vitaly, confused. Sorry, what the heck was that? It felt sad, definitely something Mikhail didn't like, but it also felt… felt… felt a bit like when Mikhail had wanted Vitaly's bite wound to heal. Not exactly like that, but very close to it. And feeling like that had been Mikhail's second chance to earn Vitaly's trust.

So, seemed humans were sorry when they screwed up but still wanted to be trusted.

Mikhail nodded, slowly, and Vitaly sighed, relived, and patted the snork's shoulder amiably:

"I'll find out what happened, ok? This won't happen again, I promise, I'll make sure of it."

* * *

With decided steps, Vitaly made his way to the door that leaded to the second floor. He would ask the general if he knew something about what had happened to Mikhail. And, if he did, Vitaly was ready to give him a lecture about how the snork was going through a fragile phase of accepting humans and could not be disturbed. Mentioning the friendship between him and the mutant would be useless and he didn't want to be mocked, he wanted to be heard.

Vitaly opened the door… or tried to, because it was locked. That door had never been locked since he had started working in the military base. The young scientist frowned, suspicious, tried once more to open the door without success, then decided he would try later. He hadn't eaten, yet…

Still frowning, Vitaly turned his back to the door and went to the canteen. The cooker was sitting in one of the couches in the leisure area, watching an old movie on the TV. The man looked at the entrance to see who had come in and raised his eyebrows:

"Doctor, you're late!" he exclaimed and jumped to his feet. "Yours and Mikhail's breakfasts are ready, but you never showed up… did something happen?"

"In fact, it did…" Vitaly replied darkly. He told the cooker what had happened, how he had found the corpses – and the young scientist felt nauseous again -, how Mikhail had seemed to have returned to his former snork-self, how he was badly injured and how he had somehow recognised Vitaly. The cooker listened, his frown growing bigger and bigger, until Vitaly sighed and shook his head. "I want to know who did that and why. Misha could have died, or I could have lost him to that mental state he was in before-"

"Doctor, there are things we should leave alone…" The cooker shook his head, slowly. "Mikhail isn't dead and seems it's fine now, you should simply stick to that and-"

"I can't leave this alone!" Vitaly's turn to shake his head and he crossed his arms nervously. "I can't, especially for Misha… but this also shows an utter disrespect for my work! The general said Mikhail is my subject of study! One can't just… can't just… trigger a violent response from him like that! This could have ruined everything!"

"But it didn't, and you should be glad for it, patch up your snork and move on," the cooker advised. "What can you do against the military, doctor? Nothing, they're the ones employing you."

"But-"

"Look doctor, I've been cooking for the army since I was sixteen. I've seen much," the cooker handed Vitaly his and Mikhail's tray with breakfast. "Mikhail is fine. Good. Ignore this, keep studying the snork and consider teaching it how to use the cutlery… but drop this, yes?"

Vitaly didn't answer.

* * *

He found Mikhail lying still, eyes closed. The towel under him was lightly bloodstained, and Vitaly presumed the snork had been moving a bit to lick his wounds:

"Misha, do you want breakfast?" he asked, forcing a smile and making his way to the bed. The snork cracked an eye open, sniffing the air, just to grunt and close his eye again. Vitaly took that as a no and remembered the half-eaten corpses.

He shivered, but forced himself to push the memory to the back of him mind; he didn't want to remember that everytime he looked at the snork. With a sigh, he left Mikhail's tray on the floor and went to sit on the bed, next to the mutant, then started to eat his breakfast:

"You know, I was going upstairs to ask what the heck happened… but I found the door locked," the brown-eyed scientist told. Mikhail opened one eye again. "Since I work here, that door has never been locked! I don't understand, but this is all too strange for my liking…"

Vitaly's and the snork's… Mikhail frowned and forced himself to stay fully alert for a couple of minutes… but he couldn't feel any danger nearby. When he was alone after Vitaly left the room, he had actually thought that it had just been humans being… well, humans. Being stupid. However, now that Vitaly was considering the whole thing suspicious… maybe Mikhail should do it too, and stay alert.

The snork snarled, lowly; he had to find a way out of that place… but how could he explain his plans to Vitaly?:

"You screamed, Misha," Vitaly said quietly, looking at the food on his dish. "It sounded a bit like a high-pitched growl, yes… but it was a scream. I didn't know you could scream."

Scream.

Mikhail was familiar with that; it was that pained sound his preys let out when he attacked them. He had heard it from Vitaly, too.

But _he_ , screaming? The snork frowned.

Something unpleasant quivered in the back of his mind, something the snork didn't know what was, but that didn't want to find out.

* * *

 **Weee, review?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note:** thanks so much for the all the support! It makes me so happy! :D

Also, sorry for the late. ._.

* * *

Vitaly couldn't sleep.

He would see the half-eaten corpses everytime he closed his eyes, and the memory made him nauseous and brought up a brutal fear, a helplessness and loneliness Vitaly had never felt before. That was easy to explain; he hadn't had contact with death before and hadn't realised how easily and grotesquely a human body could be reduced to nothing but a bloody mess.

The constant why in his head didn't let him sleep, too. He wanted to know, had to know why, why had someone put Mikhail through that. Why and who.

And Mikhail, who had started sleeping curled in a ball at the feet of the bed, was now lying on his side, limbs spread, nearly pushing Vitaly off the bed. Besides, the snork had indeed a very noisy breathing… somewhat scary, in the dark room.

With a tired sigh, Vitaly changed to a sitting position and looked at his left, to where Mikhail's silhouette stood out in the dark. The young scientist shook his head and smiled bitterly; the snork had slept the whole day… having his sleep interrupted wouldn't do any harm.

Vitaly reached out for the bedside lamp and switched on the light:

"Misha?" he called. The snork grunted in response; he had his bandaged back turned to Vitaly and curled in a ball again. "I can't sleep. Can we talk?"

Slowly, Mikhail glanced over his shoulder, squinting his pale, vitreous blue eyes. He studied the man next to him, trying to figure out what could be possibly stopping Vitaly from sleeping; the human nest was comfortable, the room was safe, the door was armoured and locked, there were no windows… in short, nothing was going to sneak up on them. That was a safe place, unlike the snork's prison-like cell.

With a sigh, Mikhail changed slowly to his usually crouching stance, ignoring the pain spreading on his muscles and the throbbing in his wounds. The stitched gash pulled his skin, but still the snork ignored all of it and simply looked to Vitaly:

"I never saw a dead body before…" Vitaly confessed and pulled his knees to his chest. "Do you think about it, Misha? About… what you kill…?"

The snork tilted his head, confused. Was there anything to think about? No, he couldn't think, that would get him killed, by starvation or by being attacked! The mutant shook his head:

"Why is that?" the brown-eyed man asked, and that made Mikhail let out a suffering groan and roll his eyes. "What if you had killed me? Would you think about it?"

That left Mikhail speechless. For minutes, the snork simply frowned and tilted and shook his head several times, trying to figure an answer for that. He hated when Vitaly asked him things that didn't only come with words… but with feelings. There was a feeling, somewhere in that question, and there would have to be a feeling in the answer. Expressing human feelings wasn't nice; it felt strange, Mikhail was always left with the impression that there was always something missing and expressing feelings would only bring him more feelings, more sensations and emotions to understand and process and mimic and…

But would he think about Vitaly, if he killed him?

Mikhail looked up to the man again, and nodded slowly, feeling suddenly uneasy. The snork knew there would be guilt, yet **realising it** felt like… like stepping into unknown territory alone, like getting in a dark tunnel that hadn't been explored yet. Usually, there was nothing to be guilty about after killing something… or someone.

Vitaly smiled briefly, studying all of Mikhail's facial muscles moving – or trying to move -:

"Would you miss me?"

Mikhail snarled, utterly annoyed. What did that matter? Living and surviving where made in the present, not in the future. Why care about something that hadn't happened? The mutant groaned, exasperatedly, and lied on his side again, facing Vitaly and looking grimly at him.

Still… Mikhail nodded.

He would miss Vitaly. Even if only for a short period of time. Because then he would forget.

Right…?

The snork turned around, leaving the young scientist looking at his back. He didn't want to talk anymore. Heck, he hated talking! Vitaly made him think and suppose and realise things that had never been there and the snork would appreciate if they never were. Like that missing-someone business! It was highly disconcerting! Mikhail had had his fair share of dead pack members, but he hadn't missed them. They died, that was it; life was made of death, especially in the Zone.

He didn't want to miss Vitaly, if something happened. And he definitely didn't want to feel guilty about it.

Vitaly looked at the snork and noticed something had bothered him. That made him curious, and once more he wished Mikhail could just talk to him:

"You know Misha, I'd miss you too if something happened," Vitaly said, staring at the mutant's bandaged back. "And as I presume you already know, I feel terribly guilty about what happened. And as I said before, I'm sorry…"

The snork glanced over his shoulder again, eyes wide open and jaw clenched; couldn't Vitaly just shut up and stop poking both past and future? With a snarl, Mikhail moved to curl at the feet of the bed again, and hopefully Vitaly was done talking:

"You get it, don't you?" the young scientist proceeded, and lied on his back again, claiming the space Mikhail had shamelessly taken.

The snork's silence was the answer Vitaly needed.

* * *

"Nonono, what are you doing?"

Mikhail looked up to Vitaly, utterly confused; he was stretching, wasn't it obvious? Vitaly should give it a try too, instead of throwing himself from the bed to the floor…:

"Nonono Misha, your hands, your knees… you're all flayed, you can't… walk!" Vitaly explained, scrambling to his feet and trying to scoop up the snork back to the bed.

The snork let out a sound that reminded a dry laugh. Vitaly was worried for nothing. Mikhail had had enough time to rest, and even though he was still in pain, he didn't need another day of nothingness to recover. So, using his less wounded arm, the mutant pushed Vitaly away.

However, the young scientist gave it another try and finally managed to lift the wriggling mutant and put him back on the bed:

"No, you're staying here!" Vitaly decided, frowning. "And you're going to be quiet, and rest, and grow skin on your hands again and not break the stitches!"

Mikhail narrowed his eyes. He didn't want to stay there, no matter how comfortable the human nest was. He wanted to walk, stretch his legs, eat… Everything that was too much was prejudicial – resting included -, that was common sense among snorks. So the snork leaped to the floor again.

Vitaly sighed exasperatedly:

"Come on, Misha! Just today, please! I promise we'll make something interesting tomorrow, more interesting than lying around!"

* * *

The cooker raised an eyebrow when Vitaly got in the canteen… alone. The brown-eyed scientist looked tired, worn out, but had a little, triumphant smile on his lips:

"Where's Mikhail, doctor?" the cooker asked curiously, with a bit of concern in his voice:

"My room. He's fine, don't worry. We'll have him around tomorrow," Vitaly informed, watching as the cooker prepared two trays of food:

"Is it better?"

"Yeah… And today I'm going to talk to the general about what happened, and I want answers," The young scientist nodded, decided, and held the trays with breakfast. The cooker grimaced and shook his head:

"Doctor, leave that alone… I'm telling you, I know how these things work…"

* * *

This time the door wasn't locked.

Taking a deep breath, Vitaly went upstairs. In his head, he prepared a beautiful and coherent speech that no one, general or not, would ignore light-heartedly. It was about time that Vitaly marked his position as professional scientist and responsible adult man, methodical and with will of his own, and not as a mere subordinate not allowed to express his opinion, whose work was to be discredited by everyone.

Mikhail could have died.

Vitaly knocked at the door of the general's office and waited to hear the permission to get in. Taking another deep breath and mentally yelling at his heart to go back to its normal rhythm and at his hands to stop shaking, he opened the door, stepped in the office and closed the door again behind him.

The general was sitting at the desk, rocking his chair slowly and smoking. Vitaly did his best not to start coughing and wondered at which point was the artificial ventilation in that room efficient enough to drain out the smoke and the heavy scent of cigarettes.

The general seemed genuinely surprised to see Vitaly in good health and offered him a wide grin:

"Ah, doctor Fedor! What brings you here?" he asked, and Vitaly instantly knew the general knew exactly why he was there.

And the beautiful and coherent speech – or lecture – was gone, replaced by blinding anger and a very unprofessional and immature urge to cry in complete frustration:

"Aaah…" Vitaly muttered, and started to contort his hands nervously. "I… Yesterday… Yesterday Mikhail wasn't in his cell…"

"Oh?"

Vitaly wanted to punch the man. Or yell at him. Or both. But he just looked down, ashamed with his own incapacity to handle the situation properly:

"Yes, sir… He… he was in the ring… and… there were two corpses with him, and a knife, and a lot of blood, and he was injured, and he nearly attacked me and-"

"But the mutant did not attack you!" the general exclaimed triumphantly and put out the cigarette. Vitaly looked at the man again:

"You knew, sir…" he spat in accusation. The general shrugged, evidently pleased with how everything turned out:

"I wanted to make an experiment of my own, doctor."

"Mikhail could have died!" Vitaly widened his eyes. "He could have killed me!"

"But the snork didn't! Congratulations; you said in one of your reports that the little monster is not devoid of emotions and feelings… you were right! It spared you, so I presume it must feel something for you," The general stood up and walked to Vitaly, then patted his shoulder amiably. "The mutant isn't a complete monster. Your work is a success!"

Vitaly said nothing. He didn't know how to react. At least now he was getting credit for the months he had spent dealing with Mikhail… he just didn't know if he should be glad. He quit telling the general he had no right to do things like that, that he could not interfere with Mikhail in such a way. Vitaly chewed his lower lip for a moment, then mumbled in an almost inaudible whisper:

"I… I think the corpses are still there… yesterday the door to this floor was locked… Mikhail is staying in my room and right now he doesn't have the collar…"

"I'll have two soldiers cleaning up the mess, don't worry. Then the mutant can go back to its cell. The snork is not supposed to stay out of it when not being studied, doctor…"

"Who were those men?"

"None of your business, doctor."

Vitaly just sighed and looked down:

"Sir… it's been a while since I last saw the sun, can I go outside for a minute?" Vitaly asked quietly. The general chuckled and walked him to the door, and nearly, though politely, pushed him out of his office:

"Permission granted, doctor! And keep up the good work!"

The door closed behind Vitaly, and the young scientist had the impression he had just been imprisoned. Slowly, he crossed the corridor towards the stairs that leaded outside. The corridor was pretty much like when Vitaly had first arrived to the military base, months before; white, long, silent, with armoured doors standing on each side, ominously. It felt like a prison more than ever.

Vitaly reached the stairs and made his way up, to a small cabin. The slow change between artificial light and natural light made him squint his eyes and shield them with a hand. When he finally reached the cabin the light coming through the windows seemed so bright he had to close his eyes and touch around until he finally found the door and opened it.

The whiff of fresh air nearly made him lose his balance, and Vitaly hurriedly opened his eyes again and stepped outside abruptly, clutching to the door handle for support. Momently blind, all he did was feeling the chilly air freeze his cheeks, ears and nose, and listen to the wind howl, and to occasional shouts, and to the purring of engines.

Slowly, his eyes adapted to the brightness, though the day wasn't exactly bright; the sky was covered in dark gloomy clouds and his boots stood on a mixture of frozen mud and a little bit of snow.

Vitaly looked around, shocked, in a trance; the fake barrack buildings, the high concrete walls with barbed tape, the watch towers, the armoured vehicles scattered around, the big helicopter, the soldiers. There was a strange scent in the air, a mixture of fuel and humidity that made the air going to his lungs feel damp and heavy.

And heck, it was freezing cold. Vitaly returned to the cabin, closed the door and went downstairs again. His eyes didn't take long to adapt to the artificial light, yet the temperature contrast made him shiver violently.

* * *

When Vitaly left after breakfast, Mikhail succeeded in staying quiet for a bit. Then boredom began to set in, and the snork decided to seize the opportunity and jumped to the floor again. Did it hurt to walk on flayed hands? It did, and it would certainly ruin the thin scab tissue that had grown during the night, but that was just routine for Mikhail.

The snork looked around; he definitely didn't want to go into that horrid place called bathroom again, and he knew quite well the rest of the room that, in fact, wasn't really big… Yet the wardrobe seemed appealing; the only thing Mikhail knew about it was that it had a device humans used to see themselves.

Mikhail happily trotted to the wardrobe and pulled it open. Ignoring the door with the inside mirror, the snork started to sniff and poke the few clothes and the lonely pair of trainers that Vitaly had in there. Curiously, the snork slapped the pair of trainers out of the bottom of the wardrobe and stepped in, then grabbed a pair of jeans and used them for support as he pulled himself to an upright position… but the hanger broke, and without support Mikhail couldn't stand in an upright position, so he fell on his hands and the jeans landed on his head.

Taking that as a form of aggression, the snork bit one of the jean legs and shook his head, frowning; he was going to teach those treacherous jeans a lesson.

When there was an irreversible teeth mark on the jeans, Mikhail pushed them out of the wardrobe as well and decided to use another pair of jeans to pull himself to an upright position. Too bad; another broken hanger, another pair of jeans falling on his head.

The snork interpreted that as a rebellion, which was strange, because those things, surely from the same inanimate species that Vitaly and he wore to cover themselves, were not supposed to move and attack.

Another pair of bitten jeans flew to the floor and Mikhail decided it would be safer to inspect the several shelves at the left side inside the wardrobe, that contained shirts, sweaters, socks and underwear. With raised eyebrows, the snork grabbed a green sock ball and squeezed it, intrigued. He knew what socks were, but he had never seen them… in a ball. Why were the socks in a ball? Was that how they slept? Was it for defence? And since socks were inanimate, did they need to sleep or defend themselves?

The sock ball was really an interesting thing. With a little grunt, Mikhail bit it. It felt soft against his teeth and very comfortable to chew. Like food. Maybe these were food. Like the tiny green balls that he sometimes ate and that Vitaly called «Brussels sprouts».

Maybe those were overgrown Brussels sprouts, even though they didn't smell or taste like the ones Mikhail had eaten. Maybe these were raw.

Vitaly came in the room, startling the snork. With wide eyes and with a sock ball firmly secured between his jaws, Mikhail peeked out of the wardrobe.

Human and snork looked at each other.

Vitaly blinked his eyes, slowly, looking from the bitten jeans on the floor to the mutant inside his wardrobe about to eat a pair of socks. The young scientist expelled the air from his lungs, slowly, defeated, and leaned against the wall. Suddenly he wasn't cold anymore:

"Misha… what are… I mean… what happened to my jeans? Why are you trying to eat my socks?"

Mikhail frowned; so, those were really socks. Not food. Mikhail opened his mouth, releasing his textile prey. The socks fell on the floor near the injured jeans.

Vitaly facepalmed and shook his head. For a second he felt overwhelmed; nobody took him seriously, not the general, nor the soldiers, nor his colleagues… and not even the snork. He then looked at Mikhail again, still peeking from the wardrobe, and realised he couldn't be angry at the mutant for biting his jeans and attempting to eat his socks. Normally, Mikhail was actually the only one who appeared to care about what Vitaly said or did. And honestly, Mikhail destroying the content of the wardrobe would actually be funny, yet Vitaly wasn't feeling particularly humorous. At the same time, he wasn't feeling like arguing either. With a sigh, Vitaly slipped down the wall until he sat on the floor and crossed his legs:

"Misha, I told you to be quiet…" the brown-eyed scientist scolded without feeling. Mikhail tilted his head and left the wardrobe, noticing something – not his little adventure – had bothered Vitaly. He stopped in front of the young scientist and slapped one of his knees. "No, you're not funny…"

Mikhail snorted and Vitaly grinned.

* * *

Having his hands and fingers bandaged and put into things Vitaly called «tactical gloves» was annoying, but that didn't stop Mikhail from cantering to the canteen, sprint to the table were usually Vitaly and he had their meals, leap to the table and slip across it with a metallic screech caused by the metal plates and nails on the soles of his combat boots and reach the chair, where he crouched. Then he looked at the cooker and began to growl:

"Doctor, your snork is on the loose again…" the cooker complained when Vitaly finally made it to the canteen. "I think resting only made it worse…"

"Don't worry, he's just playful," Vitaly smiled and the cooker began to set the trays. "I just don't want him to break the stitches."

The cooker grumbled something and handed Vitaly the trays with food. The young scientist took them to the table and placed one in front of Mikhail. The snork immediately started to devour his scrambled eggs with toast.

With the mutant distracted with his food, the cooker decided to approach Vitaly and Mikhail, and stopped behind Vitaly's chair:

"Attacked with a knife, you said? But it's already healing!" he commented, surprised.

Vitaly smiled widely and his brown eyes shone with enthusiasm. He turned around in the chair:

"Misha's saliva is very rich in tissue factor, with an abnormal quantity of lysozymes!"

"That means…?"

"That means he heals fast and has good natural defences against infection."

"So your snork licks its wounds? Animals lick their wounds too. Even we lick cuts and small stuff like that."

"Yes, but he has more components than-"

"It has some nasty bruises! It must have been a hell of a fight!"

"Uh… there were two corpses-"

"I've heard snorks are terrible in pack, but never heard about a single snork doing much damage against several opponents. I'm not saying your snork is stupid or any of that, but does it have any tactic? Does it know how to fight like… how to say… it was a human once, a soldier as you said, does it remember anything, or it fights like… out of instinct?"

"I don't know… but those are very interesting questions!" Vitaly smiled widely, pleased and happy with the sudden interested in Mikhail.

* * *

 **Weeeee, review?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note:** what's this? Another update? In the same week? HOW?

The thing is, I wrote a monster chapter and now I'm dividing it into tinier bits, easier to read. :3 So expect at least one more update this week.

* * *

"Did you hear that, Misha?" Vitaly asked, closing the lab door. Mikhail trotted around the lab, sniffing the air and looking everywhere. "Our friend cooker made a really interesting question; how do you fight?"

Mikhail stopped abruptly and looked at the young scientist across the lab. Interesting question? No, that was stupid! He fought with everything he had, obviously! Limbs, teeth, nails, body weight, quickness, energy, strength and balance! Obvious! Vitaly came to sit on the floor in front of him, rocking himself sideways:

"Do you have any tactic? How do you know where to bite?"

There, Vitaly was doing it again! He was asking things to which there were no questions to be made, no answers to be found! Those were things not to be thought about, they were just to be done! Mikhail snarled and walked away, towards the sliding doors; Vitaly had promised him they were going to have a nice day, creating existential doubts wasn't nice.

The young scientist frowned, confused, but decided not to push Mikhail. He would try later. With a sigh, he looked around and his eyes fell on the microscope in the lab workstation. He frowned; he had taken a blood sample of the snork to analyse, but that had been before taking Mikhail to the canteen. He should take another blood sample and confirm, or not, if the snork's new diet had influenced the components of his blood:

"Misha, come here," Vitaly asked as he stood up. Mikhail, who was trying to open the sliding doors, looked over his shoulder and saw Vitaly go to the lab workstation. Vitaly had his back turned at him, like he was intentionally blocking his view, and the snork found that highly suspicious. He looked at the sliding doors again; stupid doors that didn't work like normal doors! "Misha…" Vitaly called again, and the snork succeeded in opening the doors. The mutant looked over his shoulder once more, to see Vitaly walking to him with a cotton ball and a syringe. "Look, I need a blood sample. It doesn't hurt, I promise."

The mutant widened his eyes. He didn't like the syringe. Nope, that wasn't the nice day Vitaly had promised. He wriggled his way through the small opening he had managed between the sliding doors:

"Misha, come on!" Vitaly cursed softly and slid the doors completely open. Mikhail grunted, displeased, and hurried to trot to the MRI scan machine; Vitaly was very tall and it would take him only a couple of large strides to catch up with the snork, unless the mutant succeeded in reaching a place high enough to keep him safe.

Hopefully, the MRI scan machine was high enough…

Hearing Vitaly's boots closer, Mikhail sprinted suddenly. His muscles ached, the stitch pulled painfully, but still he leaped to the machine:

"Misha!" Vitaly called, incredulous, frustrated and worried at the same time.

Nope, that hadn't been a good jump! Mikhail's upper half successfully landed on the top of the machine, knocking the air out of the mutant, and the snork hurriedly swung his legs over the top and stood there, lying flat on the top of the machine. He looked down to Vitaly and raised his blond eyebrows; he was safe!

"You're not supposed to… to do that!" Vitaly tried to reach the mutant, but Mikhail slapped his hand away. "You are wounded, dammit! You… you should be quiet and… and Misha, get down! What if you broke the stitches?"

Yet the mutant simply looked triumphantly at the young scientist. Vitaly pinched his nose bridge and sighed, feeling suddenly tired. Well, he had to think on a way to lure Mikhail down and take the blood sample…

Mikhail began to growl.

Sighing again, Vitaly hurried to the door. Someone knocked. The young scientist looked at the MRI scan machine again, just to be sure Mikhail was still there, and for the moment prayed that the mutant would stay on the top of the scan machine. Vitaly then opened the door and there was Alexei, smiling, with an arm still in a sling:

"Hi there, Doc!" he saluted cheerfully. "I think this is yours. Well… Misha's!" And handed Vitaly a short, heavy chain, with a large leather collar with small prongs in the inside. Vitaly grimaced and held the collar:

"Ah, the much beloved collar… Thanks…"

"The guys were coming down to clean up the mess and I figured «hey, I can tag along and pay Misha a visit!», so here I am!" Alexei started to bounce on the balls of his feet. "I can hear him, so I guess he's okay…?"

"Yeah… hurt, but okay," Vitaly looked over his shoulder again. Mikhail was still on the top of the MRI scan machine, growling loudly, and apparently intended to come down.

"Everybody was making bets," Alexei proceeded, and that caught Vitaly's attention again. "They all said that-"

"Wait… how… how many people knew about this?"

"Uh… there were rumours…" Alexei's voice faded away when Vitaly frowned at him. "I… it was just rumours…"

If there had been rumours, so someone had known beforehand about the general's «experiment». The soldiers had known. Alexei had known. Vitaly's frown grew bigger, and he slowly shook his head in disbelief, crossing his arms uncomfortably, as if someone had punched him in the stomach:

" _You knew_."

"Yeah, but I thought it was just rumours!"

"No, it wasn't just rumours!" Vitaly snapped at Alexei and threw the collar over his shoulder in a fit of rage. It landed with a «thump» muffled by the metallic clack of the chain hitting the floor. "Misha could have died! Misha could have killed me! _And you knew!_ "

"I thought it was just rumours…" the soldier replied sheepishly, stepping back:

"Why didn't you tell me, anyway? If… if you're so interested in that snork, in my work!"

"I…" Alexei's voice was a mere whisper, and after a moment of hesitation he looked down, leaving unfinished whatever he was going to say.

Vitaly stared at him for a moment, then shook his head again and slammed the door closed. Mikhail's growls still filled the room and he sighed, walking to his desk.

The urge to cry in frustration he had felt the day before came back with renewed strength. Vitaly felt small and insignificant, and could only imagine how pathetic he must look in the eyes of the soldiers and his colleagues. Thinking about it, it probably wasn't very different from the way people in school and in college had looked at him. And maybe Mikhail looked at him like that, too…

He stopped near the desk and crossed his arms. Mikhail wasn't growling anymore.

Vitaly had genuinely thought Alexei was a good person, that he was actually curious about Mikhail. The way they had talked in previous times, and how the soldier had even helped him with the snork's old uniform, had made him believe Alexei could be a friend. But apparently he wasn't, and maybe the cooker was just being polite and, sooner or later, he too would show his despise for Mikhail and Vitaly.

Vitaly heard a grunt and looked to his right. Mikhail was there, looking up at him with wide eyes. Vitaly grinned bitterly and sat on the floor, leaning against the side of his desk:

"I'm good, Misha…" he muttered.

The snork frowned. No, the human wasn't good. He hadn't been good the day before either, but had kept it at bay. Vitaly's eyes were getting shinier and shinier, it was just… weird. And the white part was reddening, and so did his nose. Then Vitaly made a strange sound, completely alien to the mutant, and for a moment Mikhail panicked when Vitaly's eyes started to leak water. _Eyes are not supposed to leak!_ Water is not supposed to come from the eyes! It was twice that happened, but unlike the first time, Mikhail didn't feel curious about it; no, he felt terrified. What was he supposed to do? And why did Vitaly sound so pained, there wasn't anything hurting him! And why was he shaking, it wasn't even cold! And there were all these feelings, all miserable and negative! The snork had understood feelings were triggered by something, and until the moment Vitaly and he had been causing each other to feel things. However… Mikhail hadn't caused **that**. He _knew_ it. So, where did all of that come from? What was making Vitaly react like that?

Mikhail shifted nervously, unable to take his eyes off Vitaly. The man had begun whining something about respect and credibility and loneliness.

The snork remembered Vitaly telling him about his incapacity to form a pack with other humans, and until the moment all the other humans - excepting the cooker, yet nonetheless Mikhail was still suspicious about him, and the annoying soldier - had acted predatory towards Vitaly. In fact, he had been talking to the annoying soldier before… _before starting to leak from his eyes_.

Mikhail stepped closer to Vitaly, frowning and making a huge effort to keep reasoning and not get distracted by the worrying amount of water coming from Vitaly's eyes. Very well; seemed Vitaly had had enough of being a prey… however, unlike snorks, it appeared that humans didn't fight back and destroyed whatever had bothered them. No, they curled up in a ball and leaked from their eyes.

The snork expelled slowly the air from his lungs; problem identified, now he just needed a solution. Maybe the most reasonable thing to do was destroying the source of Vitaly's discomfort, namely the soldiers.

Mikhail's thoughts were interrupted as Vitaly wrapped both arms around him and pulled him closer. The mutant snarled in pain when Vitaly's arms pressed the open wound in his back and then tried to wriggle away, placing his hands on Vitaly's shoulders and pushing himself, because that was a highly threatening position; it gave him the feeling Vitaly was in a position of dominance and could snap him in two. Yet the human simply made those pained sounds as his eyes still leaked, and he was shaking, and he hid his face on the crook of Mikhail's neck.

The snork froze and widened his eyes, horror written all over his face.

 ** _What was that?_**

Why was Vitaly clutching to him like that, if not to kill him?

Minutes passed by and Mikhail simply stood there in an awkward and painful position, on his knees, bent forwards with Vitaly's arms strongly wrapped around him and the man's head on his shoulder. Vitaly's eyes were leaking so much that Mikhail's uniform jacket began to feel damp. And the snork frowned, feeling helpless, and realised that not knowing how to make Vitaly go back to normal was more annoying than having his back hurt and being in a vulnerable position.

Mikhail's frown grew bigger and, slowly, he draped an arm around Vitaly's back, initially just for the sake of supporting himself. But like that, he realised that position wasn't that uncomfortable, nor threatening. It actually felt… relieving. Mikhail draped his other arm around Vitaly's back and squeezed, attempting to copy what Vitaly was doing to him.

Vitaly didn't complain and, slowly, he stopped sobbing. So, humans needed to be squeezed to go back to normal. Mikhail nodded and grunted, then caught Vitaly's ear with his teeth and pulled it playfully:

"Ouch…" Vitaly complained softly and patted Mikhail's shoulder. He let go of the mutant and leaned his back against the side of the desk. Mikhail let go of him too and stood by his side, tilting his head from side to side. Carefully, the snork approached his face to Vitaly's and sniffed, then gave Vitaly's cheek a tentative lick.

Human eyes leaked salty water!

Vitaly giggled and wiped away the drool:

"It's called crying, Misha…" he informed. "And these are tears."

Mikhail rolled his eyes; humans did name everything… He snorted and clenched his jaw, looking into Vitaly's reddened brown eyes. Why had he cried?

Vitaly stirred Mikhail's blond mohawk:

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to disturb you…" the young man said, trying to steady his voice. Mikhail frowned. "It's just... it was not a good day…"

The snork snarled and shook his head; Vitaly wasn't telling him everything, and that bothered him. He wanted to understand why. He then wished he could talk, like Vitaly, and demand to know what happened. Sometimes words were a better means of communication than vocalisations.

Vitaly studied the mutant for a couple of minutes and felt a renewed urge to cry in frustration. More than ever he wished Mikhail could just talk to him, say something, soothe him, instead of forcing him to tell, to repeat the uneasiness that had already settled. With a sigh, the young scientist began to explain why he felt sad, and tired, and frustrated, and ashamed. He started to sob and cried again, Mikhail gave him another awkward squeeze and for several minutes he clutched to the mutant like his life depended on that.

After pulling himself together, Vitaly decided he had had enough and left the lab with the mutant trotting attentively around his legs.

The collar was left exactly where Vitaly had threw it; abandoned on the floor.

Drying his face to the sleeves of his smock, the young scientist didn't even think about taking Mikhail to his little prison-like cell. He couldn't care less about what the general could tell him if he knew, but he was not letting the snork alone again.

So, they went to Vitaly's room.

Vitaly was quiet and a lot of the negative feelings still lingered on him. Mikhail concluded humans, thanks to the ridiculous amount of feelings and emotions they carried, where highly prone to get emotionally destroyed instead of physically. That was a scary perspective, and Mikhail didn't want to end up like Vitaly. He needed to find a way out of that place, and he had to take Vitaly with him, yet he decided not to think about it in that moment. His priority now was fixing Vitaly. Emotional damages were way more difficult to deal with than physical damages… it had been so much easier when he had bitten Vitaly's arm!

The snork thought that being quiet too would cheer up Vitaly, so he didn't growl when the young scientist shaved the sides of his head again – and Mikhail hated the noisy machine -, didn't growl when Vitaly washed him and examined his wounds, didn't put up a fight to get dressed again and waited patiently in the bedroom while Vitaly had a shower, instead of causing general mayhem in the bedroom.

However… Vitaly was still unhappy and quiet. Even the cooker noticed something was wrong:

"It's nothing, don't worry…" the young scientist lied, dismissing the cooker's worries with a little smile.

* * *

Vitaly couldn't sleep again, no matter how exhausted he felt. He was feeling calmer, concerning the general and Alexei, though it still hurt.

But what stopped him from sleeping was Mikhail's reaction and change of behaviour for the rest of the day.

He could feel the mutant looking at him in the dark and could hear his noisy breathing. Steady, but definitely the breathing of a creature fully alert. Vitaly switched on the bedside lamp and looked at the feet of the bed, where Mikhail was lying on his side with squinted eyes:

"You do have human emotional intelligence, Misha," Vitaly stated. "Or at least, components of it. I've been right the whole time!"

Mikhail snarled, stretched his least injured arm and slapped the man's leg; no more talking about feelings and emotions! It was time to sleep, Vitaly needed to sleep! Yet the young scientist simply giggled:

"You hugged me, back there," he proceeded, and the little smile faded away from his lips. "Can you understand it, Misha? A hug?"

The snork sighed, feeling helpless. He hated when Vitaly asked him things he couldn't answer straight away. In fact, concerning the squeeze that was in fact called «hug», Mikhail had his doubts about being able to answer at all. The whole thing was just too complex to be explained with grunts and gestures of his hands. The snork thought he could grasp a little of that «hug» concept; when upset, humans liked to be squeezed. Hugged. Now, why? That was beyond Mikhail's understanding. The position was, at least in the beginning, uncomfortable and unpractical.

Mikhail shook his head, slowly:

"Hugs are these things people give each other to express gratitude, happiness, sympathy, to comfort each other… it depends of the situation, ok?" Mikhail frowned and widened his eyes. "It's non-verbal communication. I honestly didn't think you'd be able to comfort me, at least without me comforting you first. But you did. Where you aware of that?"

Mikhail blinked his eyes, slowly. Comfort was a new word, but the feeling hadn't been completely new. He had wanted Vitaly to stop leaking from his eyes, just like when he had wanted the bite wound in Vitaly's arm to disappear… Probably were different things, human feelings and emotions were a complex business, but still… The snork nodded, again with the same feeling of going to explore a completely new – and apparently not very safe – dark tunnel. But he also felt there was something missing there, something that Vitaly would like to know and Mikhail couldn't express.

He had worried about the man. Was still worried about him. How to explain this?

Frustrated, the snork turned his back to Vitaly and curled in a ball to sleep.

* * *

The next day, after breakfast, they didn't go to the lab. Instead, Vitaly leaded the snork to one of the couches on the small leisure area and looked at the titles of the movies in display near the old TV. Mikhail was confused with the couch; was that another type of human nest? If so, why was it in such an improper place to sleep, near the area for eating, naturally a highly alluring place, and where anything could reach it?

"I want to see the extent of your emotional intelligence," Vitaly explained, sitting on the couch beside Mikhail. The snork tried to copy his stance, but found it too painful for his back. He resumed to his usual crouch. "We're going to watch a movie!"

Or better, Mikhail was going to watch a movie. Vitaly was going to take notes. Hopefully, the snork would enjoy old Soviet movies.

At the beginning, the snork was most intrigued with the whole thing; there were tiny humans inside the electrical box! How had they gotten there? Who had put them there? Was it another trick of the Zone? Had the tiny humans been there the whole time, or they only showed up when electricity was allowed into the box? Yet the tiny humans were… well, humans, doing human stuff.

Mikhail quickly lost his interest in the tiny humans and their human business and jumped to the floor. He sniffed the box, looked at it from different angles… and lost interest in it, too. With a grunt, he turned around and started to make his way to the canteen area… and hopefully he would manage to sneak into the kitchen:

"Misha?" Vitaly called. "Nonono, you're supposed to watch the movie!"

Mikhail stopped and looked at the young scientist and raised an eyebrow. What was so interesting about tiny humans inside a fancy box? The mutant let out a guttural sound and proceeded his way. Vitaly hurriedly scribbled «Showed no interested; to be repeated later with a different movie», then jumped to his feet and leaded the snork to the lab.

* * *

Mikhail allowed Vitaly to take the blood sample, hoping it would do the trick and cheer up the man:

"Thanks," Vitaly whispered as he put a small band-aid on Mikhail's arm. The snork simply rolled his eyes, but Vitaly was apparently happy again.

Vitaly placed the syringe with blood over the workstation table and made his way to the desk:

"Misha, come here! You're going to make something fun while I look at your blood, ok?" the young scientist suggested as he spread paper sheets and pens over the desk.

A challenge! Mikhail grunted and strode to the desk. He climbed to Vitaly's chair and looked attentively to the items before him:

"Ok Misha… what I want you to do…" Vitaly explained as he made some random lines with different colours and shapes on the paper sheets. "… is copying this, ok? Here, you hold the pen like this… nonono, don't smash the pen… don't bite the pen, Misha… here, yeah, exactly!" Vitaly stepped back, looking at the pen-wielding snork with pride. "Now… you do what I did, ok? And I'll be right back."

The snork grunted in response and started to stab the paper sheets with the pen. Vitaly chuckled, amused, and made his way to the lab workstation.

He felt good. The sadness from the day before was gone and Vitaly was pretty optimistic regarding Mikhail's blood sample. With luck, the new diet had had a positive impact in the blood, and consequently the altered blood would also have a positive impact in the snork's organism. But one thing the young scientist had already noticed; Mikhail's healing process was pretty much the same, and the stitched wound, that Mikhail hadn't licked, was still looking very fresh.

Vitaly had just adjusted the microscope when the mutant began to growl.

Vitaly's good mood went out of the window.

Someone knocked at the door:

"Shit…" Vitaly hissed and stood up. Mikhail was already at the door, growling loudly and ready to attack. "Look Misha, I'm not going to put the collar on you again… but you have to behave."

Someone knocked again. For a moment, the snork remained still. He knew who was at the other side, and that human deserved nothing but death. Mikhail couldn't understand why Vitaly didn't let him help… at least, in more efficient things, like killing that creature. Growling and snarling, Mikhail retreated to Vitaly's desk and hid under it.

Expelling the air from his lugs, Vitaly opened the door just a little to be able to see. Just in case Mikhail decided to take a closer look.

Alexei.

Vitaly frowned:

"Did you forget anything, Private Alexandrov?"

"Can we talk?" Alexei asked quietly:

"I thought you were not supposed to be down here."

"And I'm not, but I want to apologize…"

Vitaly bit his lower lip, unsure, but stepped aside and let Alexei in. Mikhail's growls became way more threatening and the snork crawled from under the desk.

Alexei widened his eyes and Vitaly mistook it for fear:

"Go ahead, I'll join you there," he instructed, and the soldier went to the room with MRI scan machine. Mikhail was decided to follow him, but Vitaly kneeled in front of him and held his shoulders. "Misha, please… don't."

Mikhail clenched his jaw. For a moment he thought about pushing Vitaly aside and go after the soldier. It would be easy; he was stronger than Vitaly and the injured soldier would be an easy kill. He could rid Vitaly of one of the things that had made him cry the day before. Besides, a soldier was a soldier, a human, an enemy and prey; had to be destroyed.

However, the mutant grunted in response and didn't go after the soldier, though he kept growling.

* * *

 **Weeeee, review?**


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note:** ok, so... I said I'd make 3 updates in the same week, didn't I? :3 Yeah, about that... turns out I divided the text in a very un-smart way, so this chapter was too small and I had to write some more.

I learned a valuable lesson: if I end up with a giant chapter, I shall post the giant chapter undivided.

* * *

Vitaly joined Alexei and slid the doors closed. Mikhail's growls were still pretty audible.

Alexei was leaning against the scan machine:

"He's bruised… a lot…" the soldier mumbled. "But the stab wounds… how is it possible?"

"You said you came here to apologise, not to make questions…" Vitaly replied and crossed his arms. He wanted to look Alexei in the eye, make him understand he wasn't welcome anymore, but all he managed was looking down at his boots and feel again that urge to cry. He felt hurt:

"And I am sorry! I should have told you, I'm sorry I didn't! But if that had been indeed just a rumour I'd have stressed you out for nothing… and I don't want you to think I'm here to mock you or something…"

Vitaly looked at the soldier and frowned. Alexei was poking the cast protecting his arm, looking down as well:

"I'm sorry…" he mumbled again. "I don't blame you for being angry, really… nor Misha for wanting to bite my head off…" Alexei looked up, to Vitaly. "I… I asked some guys… They tell me stuff because I'm new here… I asked some guys… they say the guys Mikhail killed are the same stalkers that brought him in."

Vitaly's frown grew deeper.

Silence stretched between them, filled with Mikhail's insistent growling. Realising Vitaly was waiting for him to talk, Alexei licked his lips and proceeded:

"Okay, so the Zone is closed to the public, right? But there's these dudes who come here illegally for whatever reason, and they're organised in factions. Supposedly the Army should shoot down all these guys… but you know… conveniences. So, there's these guys who have contacts with stalkers, and seems the general arranged for two stalkers to bring down a snork for experiments: Mikhail. And seems the general paid them a lot, like… a fuckton of money to buy their silence!" Alexei unconsciously lowered his voice and Vitaly had to approach him to hear him over the mutant's growling. "But… some months ago… the attacks started-"

"Attacks?" Vitaly remembered the few times Mikhail had started to growl for no apparent reason, going back to normal minutes later. He had never understood that… but maybe the snork could feel the danger in the surface. Alexei nodded:

"Yeah, and it's not bandit raids or stuff like that, or zombified stalkers! No! It's the big ones, Duty and Freedom and they bring loners along, and last time was a group of mercs! The general put two and two together and knew the stalkers had busted him! So, two weeks ago he sent a guy in undercover… it's the guy in undercover who told me this, by the way, and the guy has some stalker acquaintances and they told him where to find those two stalkers-"

"But… what's so important about spreading around that the Army is trying out stuff in a mutant? I thought everybody's objective was to shoot down mutants!"

"It's supposedly a secret project! Not even the guys who know everything and tell me everything know exactly why Mikhail is here… Besides… the other units in the Zone don't know about the underground levels… If they start asking questions… You know, the guys who've been here for a long time say this is luxury, compared to other bases! We have potable water and can shower and have a gym and an infirmary and canteens and the other bases don't-"

"-so if they know, that's going to be a problem…"

"Yeah…"

Silence stretched between them again, filled with loud growling. Vitaly was momently stunned with the amount of information he had been given. Scary information, actually; what if one of those factions actually managed to get hold of Mikhail? What would happen? And how far would the general go to prevent a riot from other military units, or to prevent said stalkers to know in detail about Mikhail? Or… was Mikhail the objective, or was it the result of Vitaly's work? Dread gnawed at him, and Vitaly felt the beginning of a panic attack:

"I'm sorry…" Alexei mumbled again, interrupting his thoughts.

Vitaly looked at the young soldier, blinking his eyes slowly. Finally, he shrugged:

"It's not your fault… We're g-"

Alexei wrapped his good arm around Vitaly and squeezed, at the same time rocking them sideways and mumbling intelligible things. The young scientist was frozen for a moment, then allowed himself to smile and hugged Alexei, patting him on the back.

* * *

That night was Mikhail's turn to be sleepless. The snork couldn't understand why Vitaly had accepted the soldier who had upset him nearby… and in the end, it was like the soldier had never done anything to Vitaly! How could Vitaly be like that? Why hadn't he destroyed – or let Mikhail destroy – the soldier?

Yet, the snork remembered with a snarl, he too had done something to upset the scientist – bite him – and he too was still there, and it was like nothing had happened.

What was that? What was that feeling of allowing the offensive ones into the pack, like there hadn't been anything, and go on with life?

Yet again… Mikhail had also been through that. He had a still open wound in his arm and several fresh scars and bruises to tell the story. He too had been upset with Vitaly… and now they were there. Mikhail was there, in the human nest, curled in a ball and staring at his hands, and Vitaly was there too, in the human nest, within arm reach.

What in the Zone was that thing, that made mistakes meaningless?

Suddenly… that unexplainable danger again. No steps to be heard, no scent in the air, no voices or explosions or gun fire to be heard… nothing, just that light tension, just the feeling that there was trouble. The snork immediately stood on his fours and began to growl.

It didn't take long for Vitaly to switch on the light:

"Uh… Misha…?" the young scientist mumbled, rubbing the sleep off his eyes. Then he widened them, startled. "Misha! Alexei…! The attacks!"

Mikhail frowned, even though he kept growling:

"He told me! Alexei said there's people attacking this base because they know about you!" Vitaly's sudden agitation did no good in calming down the mutant. "My god, what would they want from you?"

The snork had no idea, but that didn't sound good… He had seen stalkers cut off dead snork's feet, didn't understand the point of doing that, but seemed unlikely that the humans would cause a fuss just to get his feet…

For several minutes Mikhail growled at the top of his lungs… until the invisible danger was gone. The snork then fixed his pale blue eyes on Vitaly, waiting for an explanation:

"Those men, Misha… those men you… killed… Alexei said they told someone else about bringing a snork to the military, and that the other factions of stalkers are attacking this base because of that," Vitaly cupped Mikhail's face and studied it attentively. "What do they want from you, Misha? What's so special about you?"

Mikhail frowned and shook his head free. Yeah, what was so special about him? He was just like any other snork, apart from having a fancy hairstyle, dry and clean clothes and head free from the diabolical gas mask that had compromised his vision for years. And maybe… maybe he was a bit too curious for his own good. But that didn't seem reasonable enough to be hunted down. Humans didn't attack each other to kill mutants, no, they even sided with each other, going back to fighting among themselves when the mutants were gone. Mikhail had seen that happen several times.

No, it couldn't be him the humans were looking for… but Mikhail wasn't going to stay there and find out. He had to leave that place, and hopefully he would manage to take Vitaly with him:

"Maybe they want to know if you can be human, again," Vitaly suggested, cupping Mikhail's face again and studying it carefully, like he expected to find something indicating that the mutation was reversing. "Maybe they want to know if all mutants can go back to what they were!"

The snork snarled and clicked his tongue in annoyance. There, Vitaly was doing it again; supposing things that were not to be supposed. How could he – and the other mutants – go back to what they were… if they already were what they were? Mikhail was a snork. Had always been one. All his memories pointed that way, it was everything he remembered. And even though the device humans used to see themselves had shown him he and Vitaly shared a lot of similarities… that was just coincidence.

Had to be coincidence.

Vitaly noticed how Mikhail's vitreous eyes began to move, nervously, like the mutant was looking for an answer somewhere in the room. Mikhail frowned lightly and Vitaly felt him clench his jaw and tense his neck.

The young scientist concluded again that, if the mutation process could be reversed, it was through Mikhail's mind. Biting his lower lip, he let go of the mutant and looked at his watch, left on the bedside table.

It was little past eleven p.m., and Vitaly decided that subject couldn't wait for the morning:

"Ok Misha, we're getting dressed."

* * *

Mikhail was utterly confused; wasn't it time to sleep? They always slept after dinner, for a long time, why were they going back to the lab?

Time in the military base, Mikhail noticed, was exactly like time in the tunnels where he had lived; day and night were impossible to tell apart, in the base because it was always bright and in the tunnels because it was always dark. Vitaly somehow knew about time thanks to a small device around his wrist, and Mikhail was sure the little device was telling them it was time to sleep.

Yet they went to the lab.

Vitaly locked the door behind Mikhail, then strode to his desk:

"You have to remember something, it must be somewhere in your mind," Vitaly muttered, more to himself than to Mikhail. He reached his desk and opened a drawer, from where he took the plastics containing Mikhail's tattered uniform, gas mask and dog tag. He removed the items from the protective plastic and placed them on the floor, in front of the snork.

Mikhail tilted his head, intrigued, and Vitaly sat cross legged beside him:

"Your old uniform, Misha," the young scientist explained, pointing the tattered clothes. "Do you know why you had it?"

Mikhail frowned; initially he had thought it was part of his body, like the furs and skins of the other mutants, but thanks to Vitaly he had understood the uniform was detachable, unlike any other mutant's skin or fur. So now Mikhail knew clothes were an inanimate species meant to be worn to protect the skin.

But… if the uniform was detachable… then how had it appeared on him? He couldn't have been born with it!

The snork blinked his eyes quickly and changed to a side sitting position, looking from the tattered uniform to Vitaly:

"You see this _telnyashka_? Alexei said it's worn by paratroopers. And this," the brown-eyed man showed Mikhail the dog tag, "this was around your neck and surely had your blood-type and some other information as well, but it's now unreadable. But your name is still understandable, and that's the only thing I'm sure about you; that your name is Mikhail. And, on this side, there's this insignia, and Alexei said paratroopers have this insignia. So, Misha, you were a man just like me, but something happened to you six years ago that made you… what you are now!"

The snork just blinked his eyes, stunned, looking from his old uniform, gas mask and dog tag to Vitaly. For a moment, he was unable to reason, to assimilate and weight the words like he usually did, then try to act accordingly. And while he couldn't make an opinion, his mind was filled with a blissful blankness, and Mikhail couldn't remember the last time his mind had been so quiet, because not even in his sleep he would feel such tranquillity.

But then…

A scream. That agonizing, terrifying scream. The scream that would sometimes rise from the back of Mikhail's mind and chill him to the marrow, because to have a scream there had to be a wounded prey, and to have a wounded prey there had to be pain. Mikhail's haunting scream was bodiless but painful, and having the pain without having the memory for that was dreadful.

And then more screams, weaker than Mikhail's haunting scream, and the snork felt the dire need of running away, hiding somewhere dark and deep and cold, where the screams wouldn't find him. But they were in his mind, somewhere, which meant they were with him and would find him whenever they wanted. Fine, the snork then had to hide somewhere dark and deep and cold, where nothing would wake up the screams.

The sudden feeling of something on his shoulder snapped Mikhail out of his thoughts and the snork snarled and turned around abruptly, clawing at whatever was trying to restrain him:

"Misha, damn it!" Vitaly yelped, shielding his face with his arms. The snork stopped, stunned, wondering how could he have forgotten Vitaly was there with him. He was about to frown and tilt his head apologetically, when his eyes fell on the rusty and bloodstained dog tag holding from one of Vitaly's hands.

Why was Vitaly giving the screams a reason to… scream? Why was Vitaly making him uncomfortable? That was not how a pack worked! Vitaly was supposed to have his back, just like Mikhail had Vitaly's! Heck, that was Vitaly's second betrayal and, looking with hypnotised eyes to the dog tag, Mikhail wasn't sure if he should let Vitaly live and probably betray him a third time:

"Misha?" Vitaly called, intrigued, observing as the snork's expression hardened and his eternal grin became wider, grotesque and brutal.

Mikhail began to growl and crouched, slowly averting his gaze from the dog tag to Vitaly.

Maybe he should simply kill Vitaly, and hopefully there would be no more screams.

Yet, despite having bothered him with all that disturbing rubbish, Vitaly didn't look like he was intentionally hurting Mikhail.

Confused, the snork slowly retreated to under Vitaly's desk, and by no means the young scientist could take him out of there.

* * *

For the next two days, Mikhail avoided Vitaly. He wasn't growling anymore, but wouldn't make eye contact, wouldn't approach Vitaly or let him approach. Mikhail refused to leave the lab, be it for eating or sleeping, and whenever Vitaly sat at the desk the snork would crawl from under it and seek refuge on the top of the CT scan machine.

Vitaly didn't like that, and tried to remember what had he possibly done to upset Mikhail. He tried to ask the mutant, but the snork didn't bother to answer.

On the third day, Mikhail, lying under Vitaly's desk, began to growl but made no motion to leave his hiding place. And Vitaly, sitting at the workbench while writing down notes, put his pen aside, closed his notebook and looked at the door, expectantly.

Someone knocked and he went to open the door:

"Heeey, Doc, I brought someone along!" Alexei greeted with a toothy smile. Frowning, Vitaly stepped aside to let him in. Him, and another soldier, older than the two of them, with the tired looks of someone who had seen much.

For a while, all Mikhail did was growling under the desk. He knew Alexei was there and seeing the soldier was exactly what he didn't need in the moment, but there was another soldier with him, and the two soldiers were talking to Vitaly about something.

Finally, the snork's curiosity took the best of him and Mikhail slowly and cautiously crawled out of his hiding place, his loud growling filling the room. He looked at the three men; Vitaly seemed a bit surprised to see him out of his hiding place, Alexei had his usually dumb smile and the third man…

The third man…

Something quivered in the back of Mikhail's mind. The mutant frowned and, slowly, his growling faded and all he did was staring at the third soldier with wide eyes, coiled but frozen in place.

Vitaly frowned, because Mikhail had never reacted to someone like that. He averted his gaze from the snork to the soldier Alexei had showed up with, Anton, only to frown in alarm. Anton was looking at the snork like he had seen a ghost.

For a moment, nobody made a sound or movement.

Until, slowly, Anton fell on his knees. Still, Mikhail was silent, unmoving, following Anton's every little movement with his eyes:

"It's him!" Anton whispered in awe and dread.

* * *

 **Weeeee, review?**


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note:** well, it has been a while... BUUUUUUUUUT hopefully this super-informative chapter will make up for it! :D

* * *

"It's him!" Anton repeated, a bit hysterically, and looked from Vitaly to Mikhail again, who was still unmoving and silent:

"You know him?" Vitaly asked, hopeful, and at a loss of what to do clutched to Alexei's shoulder, who let out a little pained whimper.

The sound was enough to snap Mikhail out of his frozen state and the snork hurriedly crawled back to his hiding-place under the desk. He was still silent and kept observing Anton with wide eyes.

Anton followed the snork's movements, and for a moment didn't answer Vitaly. Even though he couldn't see, he could feel Mikhail looking back at him, and shivered:

"Uh… I… I knew his older brother, Vasyl," the soldier told, staring with sunken eyes at the place where he knew Mikhail was observing him. "Vasyl Savych Savaryn and his little brother Mikhail Savych Savaryn… We were neighbours, in Kiev… I… Vasyl and I were friends since kindergarten."

The soldier paused and took in a shallow breath. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he looked away from where he knew Mikhail was and looked up, to Vitaly and Alexei. His face was ashen and his eyes, though staring at Vitaly and Alexei, were focused inwards:

"We lived in Kiev, yes… Near the downtown… We played in the street and at each other's places. Vasyl was three years older than Mikhail," He paused again, smiling absentmindedly. "Heck, Vasyl would break your head open if you dared to touch Mikhail, he was a hell of an overprotective bastard."

Anton chuckled and looked down to the floor, feeling a new unpleasant shiver, and both Vitaly and Alexei ended up sitting or kneeling next to him:

"We were young and stupid… we joined the Army at eighteen. Infantry," the soldier bit his lower lip and frowned. "Some weeks later… no, months… anyway, shortly after… shortly after Vasyl's parents died in a car crash. Mikhail was only fifteen, they didn't have any other relatives alive and, since Vasyl was doing the recruit and had to stay in the barracks, Mikhail had to go an orphanage. That didn't affect him, though; for what I remember Mikhail was always a nice kid, well-mannered, well-behaved… of course, Vasyl was always there for him, whenever he could leave the barracks."

Another pause and the soldier looked at where he knew the snork was. He forgot Vitaly and Alexei where there and proceeded, talking to the snork, but acting like he didn't know him at all:

"Mikhail was eighteen when he joined the Army, after his big brother. He did the recruit in the same barracks as us. Heck, Vasyl was thrilled, couldn't stop bragging about his little brother-"

"When was he born?" Vitaly interrupted in a whisper, afraid to disturb the soldier. Anton frowned, thoughtful:

"Uh… Vasyl… Vasyl was as old as me, we were born in 1983."

Vitaly nodded; then Mikhail had been born in 1986. Which meant he was 26 years old:

"After the recruit, Mikhail enrolled in the paratrooper course. Everyone told him he wouldn't make it, that he was too small… in the end, Mikhail was the best of his regiment. Vasyl went over the moon, of course…" Anton smiled sadly. "Good times, our division and Mikhail's regiment shared the barracks…" His smile died. "Then in January, 2006, Mikhail's regiment was deployed… to the Zone."

A new pause and Anton looked to Vitaly and Alexei, his eyes still focused inwards:

"Mikhail and Vasyl exchanged some letters. I think Mikhail never said his exact location, only that they were guarding lab complexes… but… but Vasyl confided me his little brother told him strange things happened. That _everything_ was strange."

"Do you have those letters?" Vitaly interrupted, excitedly. His enthusiasm dropped considerably when Anton shook his head, sadly:

"I don't know what happened to those letters… Confiscated, maybe… Anyway… in March Vasyl was very nervous, and I asked him if something had happened to Mikhail. He said his little brother had told him he and his entire regiment and everybody in their location had a sudden and massive headache for two hours straight, and the pain was so intense many fainted, including Mikhail. Vasyl also said Mikhail told him everyone felt nauseous for the rest of the day and that his little brother felt a strange emptiness, a hollowness like he had never felt before. He said Mikhail was scared. Vasyl was very over-protective of his brother, he told me once Mikhail was back, they were both leaving the Army…" Anton sighed and shut his eyes, clenching his jaw. "The thing is… Mikhail never came back… and that letter in March was his last."

"A guy told me about an experiment in March! It was repeated in April, for a longer time, and seems that's the one that fucked up everything!" Alexei exclaimed, rocking himself back and forth:

"But what kind of experiment?" Vitaly asked urgently and Anton shrugged:

"Some bullshit to change the human psyche, stop all the wars, etcetera…" Anton explained and was cut off by Vitaly:

"Is it possible that Mikhail started to mutate in that first experiment?"

"Doctor, I don't know! I just know what Vasyl told me, and he told me his little brother wasn't feeling well!" The older soldier shook his head again. "Vasyl was never the same again… and when _we_ were deployed to the Zone, in 2009, to this very base, Vasyl deserted. He told me he was going to find his little brother and go home with him," Anton's voice broke and his eyes, grey and tired, filled with tears. "He left, one night, little after we arrived. Didn't come back… I found him, days later, during a patrol; dead, by the roadside… he didn't go far, something attacked him and killed him… My best friend was dead."

Anton dried the tears to the back of his hands and spent some time in silence, looking down. Then he stood up, slowly, grimacing as he stretched his legs, and both Alexei and Vitaly scrambled to their feet as well. Anton sighed and unbuttoned his uniform jacket:

"I… I think you should have these," he muttered, reaching for something in a secret pocket he had sewed in the inside of his jacket. "Might be helpful, I don't know…" Anton handed Vitaly two pictures; one with two soldiers and another one the portrait of just one soldier. The pictures were stained (blood, Vitaly presumed) and the colour was fading in the corners, but the faces of the soldiers were perfectly clear. Anton pointed the soldiers together in one of the pictures. "Vasyl and Mikhail, the day Mikhail finished the recruit."

Vitaly stared at the picture; Vasyl and Mikhail were the image of each other, both blond, blue-eyed and with very typical Slavic facial features. But Vasyl was tall and built, and Mikhail was much shorter than his older brother and much slender. They were smiling, arms thrown around each other's waists, posing in front of a dirty building in a cloudy day.

"And this one, this was taken little after Mikhail finished the paratrooper course," Anton proceeded, pointing the portrait. Vitaly looked closer, studying the picture.

So, that was how Mikhail had looked like. With the uniform and the paratrooper's blue beret. It wasn't very different from his current state, but it was a significant difference nonetheless; Mikhail had had pale skin and freckles, his bright blue eyes had looked alive and shiny, had had his blond hair in neat buzz cut and had had fleshy lips curved in a nice smile. His face hadn't been as thinner as it was now, and his eyes hadn't given out savagery and bloodthirst. His nose had been straight, a little turn-up, and Vitaly immediately imagined several scenarios in which Mikhail the snork had gotten his nose broken:

"He didn't change much!" Alexei commented, looking at the picture. Anton smiled sadly:

"No, no he didn't…"

"He doesn't have freckles anymore," Vitaly stated, and that was something worth investigating. "Tell me, Anton… how was he like?"

"Uh, I didn't know him very well but… I always thought him a good kid. Well-behaved, well-mannered, extroverted but not loud… He wasn't bad to hang out with. Why do you ask?"

"So, he wasn't aggressive… cunning… curious?" Vitaly looked to the place where Mikhail was hiding, a million questions popping in his head:

"Hm, not that I remember…"

"You said he was a paratrooper… does that imply, let's say, hand-to-hand combat?"

"Basic," Anton smiled. "But Vasyl and Mikhail had Kickboxing in high school. Vasyl had Jiu-Jitsu for a year or two as well… taught his little brother some moves… they used to play-fight a lot, Mikhail was smaller but faster than his brother."

Vitaly nodded, slowly:

"You say he was faster… tell me more about his physical abilities."

Anton sighed sadly and scratched his head:

"Doctor, I don't know in detail… I just know he was a good soldier, so I presume he was strong and fast and agile enough…"

"Do you know his blood type? Or Vasyl's?"

"Uhh… Vasyl was B positive, I think… maybe Mikhail has the same blood type as him…? Vasyl had a certain tendency for anaemia, too…"

"Do you have Vasyl's wallet, or other documents? There might be a reference to Mikhail…"

"Sorry, Doctor… I just have the pictures, because I found them in his body… His personal belongings… it was all confiscated…"

Alexei shyly pulled Vitaly's sleeve, much like a child:

"Look, Doc… we have to go, we've been missing for a while…"

"Of course," Vitaly nodded, then smiled widely, looking at both soldiers. "Thank you. A lot."

Alexei bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet, delighted for having done something right. Anton merely bowed his head in acknowledgement.

When both soldiers left, Vitaly spent some more time studying the pictures, then made his way to his desk and lied on his belly on the floor, looking at Mikhail:

"So, you're older than me!" the young scientist said conversationally, but that didn't change Mikhail's deadpan expression. "And you're from Kiev and had an older brother. And you were a paratrooper, just like I told you!"

Mikhail's deadpan expression changed drastically to a glower. Why wouldn't Vitaly leave that alone? Why was he constantly insisting that the snork hadn't always been a snork, why had he summoned _that_ soldier that Mikhail didn't know… but felt otherwise?

Vitaly placed both pictures on the floor, in front of Mikhail:

"If whatever mutated you was meant to change _only_ the human psyche, then maybe it was something else that changed your physical look…" the young scientist suggested, distracted.

The snork frowned and looked at the pictures. More soldiers. He was sick of soldiers. Why was Vitaly showing him these soldiers, what was the point? Mikhail didn't recognise them, he obviously couldn't memorise the faces of all of his preys or the faces of everybody he had crossed paths with.

Yet again something stirred in the back of his mind, something unpleasant and cold, something painful, and the snork felt gradually empty, a hollow that had nothing to do with the state of unconsciousness of deep sleep. It made him powerless and weak. And there was pain and a sudden and intense distress that made Mikhail shake his head violently, like he expected all that anguish to go away with the gesture. But then came the voices, muffled in the distance, imperceptible, and screams, at first weak, and finally that scream, the haunting scream that chilled him to the marrow.

Mikhail didn't want to acknowledge the soldiers in the pictures. Didn't want to see them again. Didn't want to hear. What was done could not be undone, he knew it, and Vitaly would either stop trying to dig too deep or would eventually destroy Mikhail.

With a snarl, the mutant slapped the pictures away and curled up, growling.

Vitaly frowned and picked up the discarded pictures:

"Misha, that's not nice! I'm trying to help," he grumbled, and that made the snork snarl with a hint of – it seemed to Vitaly – disdain. He stood up and decided to hide the pictures somewhere safe, in a drawer of his desk. "Anton said you were a nice guy, but lately you've been everything but nice, Misha…"

Slowly, Mikhail crawled from under the desk, casting a grievous look at Vitaly. How could he be nice if Vitaly didn't stop poking around things that were not to be poked, asking things that were not the be asked, supposing things that were not to be supposed… as if he wanted to make Mikhail go mad…

As if he wanted to destroy Mikhail.

That was not how a pack worked, the snork concluded and tilted his head sideways, his eyes following Vitaly as he moved back and forth talking to himself. About a Mikhail the snork didn't know. _Did not know._

It was twice Vitaly did that, bringing him harm. Pack members did not harm each other.

It was either Mikhail or Vitaly, and the snork wouldn't allow Vitaly to destroy him.

Thinking about all the discomfort and pain Vitaly had lately brought him, Mikhail leaped at Vitaly. The snork heard himself snarl among the screams that still echoed in his mind, causing him a headache. He felt his booted feet collide with Vitaly's chest and push him, effortlessly, and watched as Vitaly widened his eyes in surprise and fell backwards, completely out of balance.

Mikhail rolled to absorb shock from the fall and turned around immediately, growling.

Vitaly was lying on the floor, limbs sprawled awkwardly, his eyes closed. Mikhail approached him, slowly and warily; at any moment, his opponent would do something, would attack, would try to reach out for him, would-

He noticed a small puddle of blood forming under Vitaly's head.

And, for a moment, Mikhail simply stared at the puddle, curiously, watching it slowly increase in size. Vitaly still didn't move.

Then Mikhail frowned and shook his head. The screaming in his head was gone, and so were his growls. He looked at Vitaly again, slowly widening his eyes. The puddle of blood was getting bigger.

With a snarl, the snork trotted to the door, opened it and bolted to the kitchen. The cooker had to be there.

The cooker wasn't an immediate threat.

In fact, the cooker was sitting on the impractical human nest in front of the electrical box. He was unaware of Mikhail's presence, and only noticed the mutant when Mikhail jumped to the couch and landed beside him. The cooker jumped to his feet, cursing aloud, and hurried to hide behind the television and looked around frantically:

"Doctor, your snork's on the loose again!" he cried, terrified, looking at the mutant and expecting the snork to unleash mayhem upon him.

But the snork just jumped to the floor, looking from the cooker to the door. And Vitaly, who would usually show up little after the snork, hadn't arrived yet.

The cooker frowned:

"What?" he asked the mutant, who kept looking from him to the door. The mutant looked… slightly distressed? Like… like there was something urgent and he didn't know exactly what to do about it. Slowly, the cooker stepped away from his hiding place. Mikhail then began to trot to the door, occasionally glancing over his shoulder, and the cooker decided to follow the mutant. "Where is Doctor Fedor?"

He followed the snork through the corridor and into one of the labs, where he found Vitaly unconscious on the floor. The cooker widened his eyes in horror and looked at the snork, who was then crawling under Vitaly's desk:

"I'll get help!" the cooker promised, and ran to the door that leaded to the upper floor.

* * *

The cooker's help arrived little later and, much for Mikhail's dismay, consisted of two soldiers. But the soldiers weren't there for him; they simply moved Vitaly to a transporting device and left.

Mikhail stood in his hiding place for a long time, until he felt safe enough to crawl out.

When he did, the lab felt oddly silent and empty. Outside in the Zone, Mikhail would have been highly alert, expecting a sudden attack. But there, in the lab, with no mutants, the snork realised the danger was the puddle of now dried blood on the floor.

The snork looked at it, frowning. Half of him felt attracted by it, but the other half… the other half feared it, loathed it, didn't want to see it. Mikhail turned his back to the puddle of blood.

He had attacked Vitaly three times now. Had injured him twice. Part of him felt it had been well done, but… had it really? He had attacked Vitaly consciously, well-aware that he wanted to destroy him because Vitaly was causing him harm.

Yet it wasn't physical harm. Had Vitaly been aware of that? That he was harming Mikhail?

The snork looked over his shoulder, to the puddle of blood, and wanted to believe the young scientist wouldn't harm him in purpose. What reasons had he? What had Mikhail done wrong, to deserve to have screaming inside his mind, and pieces of memories that weren't his, and the ghost of pain and despair haunting him when he had done nothing to disturb whatever had been lying in peace?

* * *

Vitaly frowned and opened his eyes, slowly.

He was in a white room, staring at the ceiling. What was he doing on the floor? No, actually… he was in a bed. Yes, it was soft, with pillows… so, he wasn't in the lab. How couldn't he be in the lab? He had work to do!

Also… there was something tight around his head. Maybe it was causing the headache – yes, Vitaly felt it now, a nasty headache, particularly annoying in the back of his head. He groaned, feeling sluggish, and raised a hand to touch his head.

Now wait a minute, is this an IV? Vitaly widened his eyes and tried to chance to a sitting position, but his headache… well, it was a really nasty one:

"I don't think you should move, Doctor," said a voice, and Vitaly turned his head to look at the source of it.

The cooker. This was either a weird dream, or something he couldn't remember had happened…:

"Uh," Vitaly said, eloquently. The cooker patted his shoulder amiably and stood up from the chair he had been sitting on:

"I'll get the medic," the cooker said with a smile.

Vitaly looked around quickly; he was in the infirmary. He had an IV – he felt suddenly nauseous about it and hurried to look away – and there was this oxygen mask on his face, that he clumsily got rid of:

"Uh… where…'s… where's Misha?" he asked before the cooker had managed to reach the other side of the infirmary and get through the door. The cooker froze, hesitated, then went back to sit on the chair next to Vitaly. He looked concerned, and there was something worrying him:

"I… He took me to you, Doctor… He showed up, looked like he wanted me to follow… I did, and he took me to the lab. And there you were, unconscious,"

Vitaly frowned; he couldn't recall that. His last memory was talking to Anton about Mikhail. Vitaly shook his head, slowly, and his headache increased, making him sink miserably into the pillows behind his back:

"I can't remember that…"

"The medic said that apparently, you just broke the skull… He said… it takes a nasty blow to the head to break the skull," the cooker looked down and shrugged. "I'm not… I'm not implying anything… and it was your snork who called for help… but…"

"Misha would never attack me!" Vitaly smiled. "Maybe I stumbled on something… and fell. I… I vaguely remember falling… backwards,"

"I'm just glad you woke up, Doctor," the cooker looked up at him again and smiled. "You scared me!"

Vitaly felt a little embarrassed for that; falling and getting his skull broken by his own clumsiness and scaring the cooker, who was such a good friend. Poor Mikhail, he was probably-

Mikhail had pushed him.

Mikhail had jumped at him. Vitaly suddenly remembered how terrifying it had been… because he was so tall, and the floor was so down there, and Mikhail was so small, and had been crouching on the floor, that was so down there… and suddenly Mikhail had been high up in the air, hitting him in the chest with surgical precision, knocking the air out of him and sending him freefalling backwards. There had been an impact, something had cracked ominously…:

"… Doctor Fedor, are you listening?"

Vitaly blinked his eyes quickly and looked up. The cooker had called the medic and the latter was looking at him attentively, pointing a small flashlight at his right eye, then at his left. Vitaly flinched:

"Uh… yes,"

"Do you feel nauseous?"

"No."

"Is the world spinning?"

"No."

"Can you tell me your name?" And the flashlight was gone and Vitaly blinked his eyes quickly again:

"Vitaly Fedor."

"Can you count to ten?" Which Vitaly did. "Now backwards?" Which Vitaly did again. "Do you remember how you fell?"

Vitaly hesitated, then looked down:

"I hit my desk and lost my balance…" he mumbled. The medic nodded and stood up from the chair previously occupied by the cooker:

"Apparently, you just broke your skull. But I'm going to run a MRI scan on you, ok?"

Vitaly just nodded, slowly.

* * *

 **Weeeee, review?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note:** oh look, an update!  
Thank you everyone who has showed support for this story. Now behold, for the plot thickens! :D

* * *

The only damage was a broken skull. A clean fracture that would bring no other complications. However, Vitaly would have to stay in the infirmary for at least a week, for observation and rest.

In a way, Vitaly was glad he wouldn't have to face Mikhail that soon. Yet he worried, a lot; the snork was free in the lab, and the lab door wasn't locked, which meant Mikhail could simply open it and roam around the base if he wanted to. But according to the cooker, who had grudgingly volunteered to give Mikhail all the meals he was used to (by pushing the tray through a small opening in the door with the aid of a broomstick), everything was quiet.

A couple of days gone by, and Vitaly spent his time trying to figure out what had he done this time to trigger Mikhail's attack. It hurt him greatly that, after all those months, the snork still felt the need to act like that. Hadn't Vitaly gained his trust already? Didn't Mikhail know Vitaly would never harm him? Mikhail could have killed him again!

Yet… he hadn't. Again.

On the third day, after breakfast, Alexei came to visit Vitaly. The young scientist smiled gratefully as Alexei sat on the edge of his bed and slumped his shoulders:

"I heard you had an accident," the soldier stated:

"How did you know?"

"Everybody is talking about how you bumped into your desk and fell and broke your head."

Vitaly rolled his eyes. Of course, why wasn't he surprised – or bothered – that he was once again a joke for everyone else. He looked around; the infirmary was empty, the medic was on the other side of the door, at the far end of the infirmary room. Vitaly sighed, leaning back against the pillow, and closed his eyes briefly:

"Can I tell you a secret, Alexei?" he asked quietly and opened his eyes again. Alexei frowned and nodded. "I didn't fell because I bumped on my desk… Misha attacked me."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Vitaly shook his head, sadly, and flinched when the motion caused him a slight headache. "He's been strange, lately. Like… like there's something bothering him. When I showed him his old uniform, he kind of zoned out and when I touched his shoulder he started to claw at me, but stopped. Then he got… strange, distant. And I can't think of anything that I could have done to annoy him to the point of attacking me."

Alexei nodded slowly, looking down. He started to fidget with his fingers:

"It was odd, you know? How he reacted to Anton. He growled at me when we met, but with Anton… he was silent, and he hid under your desk."

"You noticed that, too?"

The soldier nodded and Vitaly proceeded:

"I've asked him what was wrong, but he didn't answer…"

"Maybe he's remembering!" Alexei exclaimed with enthusiasm and slapped his knee, a wide smile spreading on his face. "Maybe you're doing it, Doc! He's remembering, and he's like those amnesiacs, they need to be left alone for a while to deal with everything they're remembering! Maybe he'll talk again, and tell you how he mutated, and-"

Alexei went on and on, all glorious plans about having a talking snork as a friend. But Vitaly had stopped listening.

 _Maybe he's remembering_.

Vitaly could see it in his mind, Mikhail screaming in pain and clutching to his head, and his wide eyes watching things only he could, and how he had been distant and aggressive… because there had been _something_ bothering him, the same _something_ that had made him scream. And seeing Anton had embodied whatever ghosts haunted Mikhail, and only know Vitaly realised he should have paid closer attention to the mutant.

Mikhail's memories were there, but the snork didn't want to acknowledge them. And Vitaly understood it must be painful for the mutant, it must bring him unimaginable discomfort… because that was the only explanation, that was the only reason Mikhail had to attack Vitaly. Destroy him before being destroyed:

"Oh no…" Vitaly whimpered, colour draining from his face. "Oh no… Alexei… Alexei, I did a horrible thing…!"

The young soldier, still daydreaming about how cool would be to have a comrade snork, stopped and frowned, worried:

"Doc? You're pale, do you want me to-"

"I did a horrible thing…!" Vitaly shook his head, his eyes wide and terrified. "Two egos can't live in the same psyche…!"

Alexei tilted his head and, carefully, placed a hand on Vitaly's shoulder. The young scientist became more and more agitated, gesticulating frenetically and looking nervously at the soldier:

"I don't understand…" Alexei excused. "Please, calm down… you're scaring me."

"You're a genius, Alexei! Misha remembers! But… he's not that man anymore, you see?" Vitaly whispered in a weak voice. "Misha the paratrooper is still there, in Misha the snork's mind. But there is only _one body_ to harbour them, and therefore can only be _one mind_. The stronger one. If Misha the paratrooper replaces Misha the snork… Misha the snork dies."

"So… he'll be human again…?" the young soldier widened his eyes in wonder. "You… you'll make it! You'll turn a mutant into a human again!"

Vitaly simply stared at the soldier. But would a human mind survive in a mutated body? Would a human mind cope with the lack of memories from the moment it mutated and was pushed back to the moment it was brought to the surface? And wouldn't the snork mind haunt the human mind, try to claim its body back? Would it hurt Mikhail, just like the supressed human memories were doing? How would that affect the body's behaviour? How to lock away the unwanted ego, once and for all, and access it only for very specific reasons, like a study; would hypnosis work?

But most important of all… did Vitaly want to kill his friend? Because Mikhail the snork was Vitaly's friend… and Mikhail the paratrooper wasn't.

* * *

The trays with food were now blocking the door and the deteriorated food stank, reminding Mikhail of the world outside.

The snork hadn't been eating much and remained under Vitaly's desk. The screaming in his mind had faded, thankfully, but the mutant couldn't bring himself to do anything else but look ahead, to nowhere in particular, forcing his mind into numbness. He didn't want to think, not about the memories and not about Vitaly.

He lost track of time and couldn't tell for how long he had been there, alone, watching the door open and the cooker push into the lab a tray of food, only to close the door again, an operation repeated three times a day. Judging by the accumulation of trays and decayed food, Mikhail supposed it had been a while. But he didn't feel like eating, or drinking, or sleeping at all. Though he would fall asleep sometimes, only for brief moments, and only to wake up restless.

Yet at some point, Mikhail felt someone coming, someone who wasn't the cooker. He knew exactly who was coming, but made no effort to leave his hiding place.

When Vitaly opened the door of his lab, a nauseating scent of decayed food made him tear up and cough. Not to mention all the trays blocking the door, that he had to push away with his booted foot in order to be able to get in the lab.

Still coughing, he remained by the doorway and looked around. The place was a mess, with food trays scattered around the door, mouldy and rotten food on them… and a big spot of dried blood on the floor, in the place where he had hit his head. Mikhail was nowhere to be seen, and the young scientist felt slightly panicked; was the snork hiding somewhere to attack him, had someone take him to his little dark and damp cell in the third floor?:

"Mikhail?" he called, peeking behind the door. The mutant wasn't hiding there, to attack him from behind. "Mikhail?"

Cautiously, Mikhail crawled from under the desk, his blue eyes fixed on Vitaly. Vitaly's head was bandaged, and he looked tired and weak and fragile. An easy prey, an easy kill.

Yet, the snork simply stood there, looking up at the young man with scrutinizing yet distant eyes.

Vitaly sighed, feeling an unpleasant shiver, and crossed his arms in front of his chest, protectively:

"I'm sorry, Misha… I… I had no idea…" he muttered, still loud enough for Mikhail to understand.

The snork tilted his head; that being sorry business again, when humans screwed up but still wanted to be trusted. How many times through their lifetime would an average human be sorry? How many times would they be trusted again?

Slowly, Vitaly stepped forwards, trying not to cough because of the stench of rotten food, and knelt in front of Mikhail. The snork simply stood there, looking at him, and his eyes were not distant anymore:

"I won't do it again, I promise. I'll stop. I just… I didn't know it was _hurting,"_ Vitaly excused, casting a quick glance at the snork and then looking down at the floor. "I'm sorry."

Mikhail made a guttural sound, something that sounded like a bitter chuckle. All the feelings and emotions Vitaly's statement carried… it was stressing. Mikhail didn't know what to do, how to do it. He did not wish to further harm Vitaly and eventually kill him, but by no means he would allow his own destruction, not without a fight. He wanted to believe that being sorry thing, that thing that made mistakes meaningless, like when he had bitten Vitaly the first time and had been forgiven and when the soldier had bothered Vitaly but had been forgiven as well. Exactly, forgiveness, the thing that made mistakes meaningless. Quite an odd – and a bit stupid – concept.

Furthermore, Mikhail realised with dread, forgiving wasn't easy. There was doubt: would Vitaly break his promise? And there was fear, a ghastly fear of the fragility the situation forced on him: he could not be fragile, because that meant being destroyed. Being led by feelings and emotions and act according to them felt unnatural to the snork; he had seen the damage Vitaly had suffered because of that. The memories that weren't his had been enough, he didn't want to deal with anything else. Such irrationality was incompatible to surviving, and all Mikhail knew was how to survive.

On the other hand… how could he not forgive Vitaly? After all the young scientist did for him, Mikhail owed him that. Right? They should be even. A favour for a favour, a pack worked like that.

Even though Mikhail wasn't sure if forgiving Vitaly was exactly a favour, and if there was forgiveness within packs.

He didn't know what it was, all he knew was that he wanted to, no matter how irrational it seemed. For whatever thing now bounding him to his very inapt pack member, Mikhail wanted to forgive Vitaly.

With a sigh, the snork raised his hand and patted Vitaly's arm amiably, maybe with a little too much strength.

* * *

"Uh… do… do you have a vacuum cleaner? And an air freshener?" Vitaly asked, peeking into the kitchen. He startled the cooker, who dropped to the floor the potato he was peeling and the knife:

"Doctor, you're back!" the cooker exclaimed and smiled, visibly relieved; Vitaly was good and could go back to taking care of Mikhail. Wiping his hands to his apron, the cooker strode to Vitaly and pulled the young scientist to a hug. "Thank god, I was sure sooner or later Mikhail would flee from the lab and-"

"I don't think he'd do that, he was hiding under my desk. He barely ate," Vitaly explained and, when the cooker let go of him, gave the man a sad smile. The cooker frowned. "Uh… there are some trays with rotten food in the lab and… do you have a vacuum cleaner and an air freshener? And maybe a mop…"

"Doctor, you look like you'll drop dead… Don't you even think about cleaning that!"

"But I'm fine, I can go back to work!"

"Your work is dealing with Mikhail," Gently, the cooker pushed Vitaly out of the kitchen and into the canteen area, though he stopped abruptly when he saw Mikhail waiting near their usual table. Even the mutant looked downcast, but still the cooker thought it better to keep a safe distance between him and the snork. "It's still early for lunch, why don't go rest a bit? I'll take care of the cleaning. And doctor," the cooker added, as Vitaly walked away and Mikhail began to follow. "… don't scare us like that again, ok?"

* * *

Vitaly sat on his bed with a tired huff and rubbed his face with his hands. Mikhail crouched in front of him, on the floor, looking at him with a frown:

"I had no idea… no idea of what exactly was going on with you," Vitaly mumbled. "I asked you, why didn't you tell me? I'd have stopped immediately!"

The snork grunted in response; how could he explain such a complex thing through gestures and vocalizations? But Vitaly was right; the young scientist had asked him what was going on, and Mikhail should have at least tried to explain himself.

Mikhail sighed; what was done, was done. Fortunately, Vitaly was there again, despite the injury and his very fragile look. He would heal, just like when Mikhail had bitten his arm, and with time and Vitaly sticking to his promise of stopping to dig out things that were supposed to be dead and buried, the two of them would be fine.

Vitaly studied Mikhail attentively and smiled sadly; there he was, throwing away his only chance at success for the sake of a mutant he had… befriended, despite his broken skull. Did Mikhail even know that, that they were friends? Was he aware of friendship, did it even exist among snorks? Or was hierarchy the only form of social behaviour those mutants knew? Vitaly sighed and looked down at his hands, more specifically to the small gauze covering the back of the hand where he had had the IV. Feeling suddenly nauseous and weak, Vitaly looked at Mikhail again and, carefully, stretched out his hand. The snork let him pet his head:

"I need to shave the sides of your head again. And you need a bath… well, I need a bath too, but I have to keep my head dry…" Vitaly stated, but then shook his head. "Misha, we have a problem…"

Mikhail tilted his head:

"I won't force you to remember, so… you're just… a snork, a very stylish one," The young scientist smiled sadly and bit his lower lip. "Which means the experiment is over, because I've concluded you can't possibly be human again, or you'll simply cease to exist. And because the experiment is over…" Vitaly then placed his hand on one of Mikhail's shoulders. "… I'm afraid… I'm afraid we'll go in separate ways."

Correction; Vitaly was throwing away his only chance at success and his closest friend.

The snork blinked his eyes quickly and his frown grew bigger. What did Vitaly mean? They were a pack, a pack was supposed to stay together! Maybe it was just the head injury, making the human say stupid things. Mikhail made a small mental note that humans were not only very prone to emotional damage because of all their feelings and emotions, but they also appeared to have extremely delicate heads that, when injured, disturbed them greatly as well.

Vitaly sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly, then stood up with difficulty and made his way to the bathroom:

"But we won't think about that for now, ok?" he asked the snork, who hurried to follow him. "For now, I'm going to fix that mohawk of yours."

* * *

Two days later Vitaly was standing in front of the general's desk, making a huge effort not to cough and trying to find breathable air in the smoke-filled room:

"I have reached a definite conclusion about the snork, sir," Vitaly announced and handed the general a small one-page report. The general raised an eyebrow and took the report, but instead of reading it, he lighted a cigarette:

"Do tell."

"I concluded Mikhail can't be human again," A lie. Mikhail's human memories – and therefore his human self - were there, somewhere, within reach. Memories of who he had been and of how he had become what he was now. Painful, repressed memories apparently erased by the snork's resilience, but that still existed and could be explored. Vitaly didn't want that. Vitaly couldn't let the general know that, with work and time and suffering, the human mind could be brought back, carrying consequences Vitaly wasn't sure would be worth the effort. Vitaly didn't want Mikhail to go through that and watch the creature he knew fade away and be replaced by someone – or _something_ – else. He preferred to end things like this, so that both of them could go home; Mikhail back outside, to the Zone, and Vitaly back to his parents' house, in a tiny _stanitsa_ by the countryside:

"But for what I recall from your previous reports, the mutant understands us, learns through imitation, recalls and applies things it learned _and_ is able to be emotionally attached to its handler… in this case, you, Doctor Fedor," the general replied patiently, handing back Vitaly's report. "I believe the snork also follows your orders…?"

"He does…" Vitaly frowned, slightly uncomfortable; he had always thought the general had given his work little importance and having the man resuming the most important aspects of his work with Mikhail was somewhat frightening.

The general shrugged:

"Sounds human enough for me, Doctor. Now… in my eyes, you and the snork operate in a somewhat similar way to a K-9 team. Do you think, Doctor, that this process the snork went through can be repeated with other specimens, and with other handlers… my soldiers, for example?"

The young scientist frowned and felt extremely uncomfortable. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't figure out what. He recalled having asked that same question to Mikhail, if any other snork would be as tolerant with humans as Mikhail was. And the snork had said no, and Vitaly believed him. Yet, he nodded, shyly:

"With… with the right person and treatment… I think that-"

"Just like a K-9 team, then. Snorks can be tamed!" The general nodded, satisfied, and took a long drag of his cigarette. The young scientist thought about explaining the general that Mikhail _had not been tamed_ , but figured that, for the general, having or learning social skills and following orders was the same thing as being tamed. "Very well, Doctor Fedor. I want you now to make a different experiment!" The general paused and Vitaly had to make a huge effort not to press him to continue, or make any nervous gesture just for the sake of having something else to do besides staring at the general, in silence, in the smoke-filled room. "I want you to figure out _how well_ the snork can follow orders, and if it can fight with weapons."

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 **Weeeee, review?**


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